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April 29, 2016

We now have the Q1 numbers from Strategy Analytics and IDC, the two last remaining of the classic four big smartphone industry analyst houses we used on this blog to calculate the industry average of the total market size, back when the 'smartphone bloodbath' started six years ago. And both SA and IDC are in exceptional, near-perfect agreement on the exact size of the market, we get a total smartphone market for Q1 at 334.8 Million units. That is down 18% from the Christmas sales Quarter (normal that Q1 is down) but for the first time ever in this industry, the YEAR-ON-YEAR comparison of Q1, so the January-March quarter last year 2015 vs now, is down. This has not happened in the smartphone industry in any YoY period. And some are now talking about 'peak smartphone'. That number COULD be a signal that smartphone industry growth has stalled and now peaked and smartphone sales will either plateau flat, or decline into the next year(s).

That could be and the math would support such a conclusion. But it is a SUPERFICIAL view of the industry without understanding two aspects of it. The first was the pent-up demand of the 6 series of iPhone that created a one-off SURGE of phablet-screen-size iPhone sales - LAST YEAR. Because iPhone owners had seen rival smartphones issue phablets for years, they waited and finally when Apple did the iPhone 6 and 6+ that created a one-time surge in iPhone sales pushing Apple in 2014 Q4 Christmas sales - AND 2015 Q1 January-March sales of the total smartphone market to an exceptionally high level. It was a surge, a peak in iPhone sales which is not normal (there is a normal level of iPhone jump in sales any other year at that time).

That means, that last year Q1, January-March 2015, was at an artificially high level - see how much higher Apple's iPhone market share was Q1 of last year (was 16% in Q1 of 2014, surged to 18% in 2015 and returned to 15% now). That was not normal market wars where one brand gains and another loses. It was Apple loyalists buying the long-awaited phablet-screen size iPhone 6 and 6+ which created that surge. Because of Q1 of LAST YEAR being so high, thus the NORMAL decline of Q1 meant, that it now produced that one-off dip in the Year-on-Year smartphone market size. Also note, that 'loss' of 2% now is EXACTLY the RISE of 2% that Apple gained for 2015 that same quarter, when their phablet surge happened.

This quarter Q2 April-June of 2016 sees the two most popular bestselling smartphone brands with their latest phones on their first full quarters of sales - Samsung's Galaxy S7 flagship pair and Apple's entry-level iPhone 5 SE. Both companies have reported very strong early sales of these models. As these two companies hold 40% of the global smartphone market, when they both have good growth quarters, the whole industry is doing well. They are clearly signalling that Q2 will be a good quarter, we can expect a return to growth comparing both sequentially to Q1 and year-on-year compared to Q2 of 2015. Then in Q3 we will see the 7 Series of the iPhone which should have a strong Christmas sales period. All signs say that the next three quarters, Q2, Q3 and Q4 will return to solid growth in smartphone overall market. Because there is a FUNDAMENTAL reason why.

The second part those clueless analysts aren't aware of, is the fundamental issue of the smartphone market as distinct from most major tech markets that they follow. The smartphone market is not growing as an independent market like say cars, personal computers or TVs. It is a REPLACEMENT market where the smartphone is cannibalizing EXISTING market like say how DVD players replaced the VCR market or how tablet PCs are replacing desktop and laptop PCs. The total global HANDSET market is just shy of 2.0 Billion units (Gartner reported it at 1.92B mobile phones sold last year 2015 which includes both dumb and smart phones). That market will evolve to become 100% smartphones just like how black-and-white TV sets evolved to color TV sets, and CRT-based 'boxy' style old TVs evolved to flat panel TV sets. It is an unstoppable train, the dumbphone market will end, it is expected to end by 2020 (I have been saying end of 2019). So there is a MIGRATION going on, which won't be stopped. THAT IS WHY it is certain, the smartphone market will still continue to grow. We were at 1.44 Billion smartphones sold last year (75% migration rate) and we'll be at about 1.58 Billion this year (80% migration rate).

What is happening in many markets is a slowin-down of the overall economy. The Chinese economy is still growing but not at the break-neck speed it did before. The US economy is spluttering along with very modest growth rates. Europe has its problems. Those will cause some of the superhot smatphone market growth to slow down - but CONTINUE TO GROW.

The smartphone market did have yes, one Year-on-Year dip in its quarterly sales of smartphones for the first time now, of 2%. That could be a signal of the smartphone market peaking or shrinking even 2% this year. But those who say that, don't know WHY there was that mathematical dip (against a surge a year ago) and the fundamentals of this industry (migration). Separately, the CURRENT quarter already is KNOWN to have big growth with Samsung's Galaxy S7 and Apple's iPhone SE (Apple said they can't keep up with demand, SE early sales are so strong). So don't panic and keep trusting this industry. The smartphone market will continue to grow this year. I mean, who are you going to trust? I was literally the first analyst to call the iPhone peak, the Nokia collapse, the rise of Samsung rather than Blackberry or iPhone to take the top on smartphones and for example that Xiaomi was no Top 3 player. I explained why Huawei was going to be bigger than Xiaomi, but also, what of those new brands now, Oppo and Vivo? Who told you first that they were going to jump into the Top 10 as Nokia/Lumia/Microsoft was falling out with Sony following out of the Top 10. Always proven correct, each of those massive events about the smartphone industry was first called here on this blog. Ahead of all other 'experts' who write about iPhones and smartphones. I know this business. Maybe its time to trust the most accurate forecaster of the mobile industry for now over 15 years.

April 26, 2016

So the iPhone quarterly numbers came out. For the calendar Quarter 1 (Jan-Mar) Apple sold 51.1 million iPhones. Thats down 32% from Q4 and down 16% year-on-year. Apple market share is now about 14.3% when it was 18.6% last quarter and 17.5% a year ago this same quarter. Apple is nowhere near to threaten Samsung for top notch but also far safely ahead of the number 3 rival (Huawei) who can't catch Apple for a long while to come.

So iPhone unit sales are down a bit. So what. Any industry has some volatility. Apple has by far the best loyatly in the industry and BY FAR the biggest profitability of any smartphone brand. They have already launched a lower-priced 'entry level' model in the iPhone 5SE which will help this current Quarter to do better. Then the next new flagship comes for the Autumn. Apple will do just fine and will pick up a point or two of market share this year. So stop with the instant panic. Apple is just fine. (PS insert here my standard rant at how boring the smartphone wars have become)

April 24, 2016

I don't often write about military matters here on the Communities Dominate blog because those issues are covered so well by specialist military websites and tend to be rather far from interests of our readers. I occasionally wade in when I feel I could contribute something, like a few years ago when the noise was getting too loud that somehow USA was becoming weak in its military (when no country in human history has had as big an edge over its nearest military rival as today the USA has, with that gap just growing not shrinking). So I wrote the blog about flat tops ie aircraft carriers.

Today is one of those occasions. We have to talk about the SLBM and why THIS step in North Korea is the most dangerous our little Fearless Leader of Pottsylvania, aka Kim Jong-Un the Supreme Leader of North Pottsyvlania, sorry, North Korea, has achieved since North Korea's first successful atomic bomb test. You the readers will be hearing somewhat 'similar' level of hysteria coming out of the foreign policy correpondents in the coming days about North Korea. Similar to what was said many times in past months with the other recent steps taken by the Nutty Uncle of the North. But this is different.. For that, I hope I can give some clarity. There is a reason why so few countries have SLBMs even among nuclear powers, but why when for example Britain ended its nuclear bomber aircraft fleet (and never built a ground-based ICBM missile force like the USA and the Soviet Union had and have), Britain still operates a fleet of SLBM submarines and is planning to build a new generation of them.

So what is an SLBM. Its a Submarine-launched Ballistic Missile. What is a ballistic missile and how does it differ from most other missiles. A ballistic missile is like a rocket it flies into outer space on a ballistic trajectory (throw a basketball high into air to get it to fly very far, that is a ballistic trajectory) A rifle bullet flies nearly straight (it actually curves also downward on a ballistic trajectory but only a tiny bit on its quick journey to its target). Most airplane-launched missiles fly 'flat' horizontal paths. They may be shot downward, from the airplane to the ground like a tank-busting Hellfire missile or they may be shot upwards like the BUK missile that the Ukrainian rebels used to shoot down the Malaysian airliner. But most missiles fly a relatively straight, flat trajectory with guidance to steer them to their target. A ballistic missile is totally different. It flies literally to space and back, on a massive super-long-range attempt to hit a basketball hoop, a ballistic trajectory that visited space and then drops very very far away, to hit its target. That is what ballistic missiles are like. In World War 2, the Germans invented the buzz-bomb V1 rocket that flew to bomb Britain. It was an early grandfather of the modern cruise missile (it was not guided so they just shot these little rocket airplanes towards Britain and when they ran out of fuel, they dropped from the sky to become a big bomb). But the second V rocket, the V2, that was fired in the last months of the war to Britain, that was the first ballistic rocket. Its engineers like Wernher von Braun best known for designing the early American rocket program, he was actually a Nazi Germany rocket engineer whose first masterpiece was the V2. And then that same technology and German knowhow was used by the Soviets to build their first rockets to go to space, with the Americans shortly following. Its a space rocket technology, not a forward-flying missile technology. That is what gives ballistic missiles their incredibly long range if wanted (modern large nuclear ballistic missiles can hit anywhere on the planet). They also land with incredible force because they come down at a speed of about Mach 5. Even if a nuclear warhead were not to detonate, it would create a crater the size of of the biggest bombs dropped from airplanes. Just the force and speed of the dud-warhead as it hits, coming down from space.

(Am I scaring you yet?)

Now Ludicrous Leader has been pursuing every avenue of a total massive superpower nuclear program. He wants to make his bombs more destructive (going from small bombs of technology similar to those used in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs) by attempting a hydrogen bomb, the biggest kind there exists. That test is perceived to have failed. He has pursued the plan to miniaturize his basic atomic bomb design to be small enough to fit a nuclear missile warhead (that may have been what one of his recent tests was about). He has pursued the ballistic rocket program of land-launched traditional balllistic missiles often hiding those developments into his space rocket and satellite project. So far its put objects into space that were not under control, they are now just space debris. So at least in that department, he can't place an intercontinental-range ballistic missile fired from land, to come anywhere near another country's target whether near like Japan or far like the USA, because his satellites are lost with no control. If used in a warhead, that missile would never reach its target (so far, but all countries have countless mishaps early in their space rocket programs and those continue always in rocket science even the Japanese just lost their satellite Hitomi - Hi Tomi - I always wish that satellite could find its way and suddenly talk to us again and say.. Hi Tomi). So many of the recent items were about those tests and developments.

But then there is the submarine launched missile idea. An SLBM. It is yes, a ballistic missile, but it is launched from a submarine. Modern SLBMs are launched while the submarine is under water (earliest SLBMs needed the submarine to come to the surface to launch). So thats the sneaky truly sneaky nastily sneaky part. North Korea has just illustrated its ability to launch a ballistic missile from a submarine - while it is under water. Hidden killer. Now, SLBMs tend to be far smaller than their ground-launched major ballistic missiles so SLBMs typically have had shorter range and smaller warheads (and/or less of them) than the traditional huge 'rocket size' intercontinental ballistic missiles. But SLBMs also have ranges in the many thousands of miles/kilometers. And here's the really nasty part - they don't NEED to fire their missile 8,000 km (5,000 miles) to reach America. A submarine can be sent on its journey for a week or two, come to the California coast, and THEN fire its missile, only a few hundred kilometers/miles and hit its target. And if the intention is to kill civilians in a city, then accuracy is irrelevant. The nuclear missile warhead can explode 5 miles off target and still kill most in the city it was aiming for.

REVENGE WEAPON

The SLBM was the most feared component of the 'nuclear triad' (the national security term that Donald Trump clearly didn't know in the recent Republican debate). Typically strategic nuclear weapons are delivered either by airplane (the original method), or by land-based ballistic missiles, or by submarine-based ballistic missiles. There also are smaller nukes that could be/can be delivered with other methods even by cannon fire or cruise missiles. But they are 'tactical' nukes not intended to destroy whole cities but intended to destroy an enemy army's military units or its military assets like say a bunker or airfield. But back to strategic nukes and the triad, only the Americans, Russians and Chinese have a triad. The French have two legs to their nuclear weapons (submarines and bombers) the British one (submarines). India and Pakistan probably have some land-based intermediate-range missiles with nuke warheads and they both have jets that can carry a nuke bomb but they are not known to operate a submarine based deterrent. Israel has airplanes which can carry atomic bombs and a domestic land-based missile with nuclear warheads and there is gossip that Israel has a cruise missile in its submarines to provide a submarine-based nuke but they don't operate SLBM capable submarines either. So of the world's nuke powers, only five have SLBMs - USA, Russia, China, UK and France. Let me show you the one I caught from an airplane window as I left Hawaii on one of my trips.

Thats a 'boomer' coming home to its port in Honolulu. American SLBM carrying submarine, of the Ohio class. They cost a couple of Billion dollars per boat (a normal 'destroyer' large surface warship by contrast costs only in the several hundreds of millions of dollars each). It is nuclear powered, the largest subs the US navy has ever built, 170m in length (560 feet) displaces 19,000 tons when submerged, has a crew of 155 in total (operated in shifts of 2 complete crews ie the sub needs 77 crew to be fully battle-operational at any hour) and carries 24 Trident missiles. Trident is the latest SLBM of the US Navy's arsenal, has 8 MIRV warheads each, and a range of 7,400 km/4,600 miles. A standard Ohio class submarine patrol lasts 70 days all underwater, the longest mission was 140 days. While the Ohio does have 4 torpedo tubes, under no normal circumstances would these boomers in war be used to attack other ships. Their job is to go hide and stay hidden. They are a revenge weapon.

Why do I say revenge weapon. The SLBM was a cold war response to the threat of nuclear annihilation, a strategic pawn in the delicate chess game of Mutual Assured Destruction (which I really really love, that its formal acronym is indeed MAD. The MAD strategy). Mutual ASSURED destruction was how the two superpowers prevented the OTHER from attacking. If you attack me, no matter what super weapons you have and use, we will both be destroyed - so you cannot win if you attack. Yes, it would kill me too, but I will retaliate and my retaliation is so massive you too will not just die, but be destroyed. Mutual Assured Destruction. And in that strategy the ultimate last card to play, when your country now glows in the dark, is the SLBM on these boomers. Note, France, Russia, China and the UK have roughly this same capacity too. So one Ohio class. What can one submbarine and its active crew of 78 (77 plus the Captain of course) do to my country? Lets count. 24 Tridents times 8 MIRV warheads means.. 192 targets are destroyed. And by destroyed - each suffered an attack 7 times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima (Little Boy dropped by B29 Superfortress Enola Gay) or 5 times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Nagasaki (Fat Man dropped by B29 Superfortress Boxcar). Now.. lets put this in context. The 193rd largest city in the USA would be West Valley City, Utah (gosh, I know a LOT of US cities and have visited all 50 states and so many places, even driven all the way through Utah yet I never heard of West Valley City). So yeah, the population threshold would be 135,000 people. More than that, and one single nuke boat with full load of ballistic missiles could destroy anything bigger. ANY city you can think of, Boston, Milwaukee, San Antonio, Tallahassee, San Diego, Seattle, Detroit.. they're all now dust. And the fallout of the radiation clouds would burn everything else so that nothing survives.

(Am I scaring you now?)

One modern major boomer does that to you. Its the real life equivalent to the Star Wars concept of the Death Star. One weapon that can not just destroy a city, one Ohio class submarine can destroy a whole NATION. Its a revenge weapon. It is meant to never be used, but it is there just in case someone tries to bully you into building a fence and paying for it haha. Not us. Nobody will ever win a war with us because the only outcome other than our side winning is that we both die. Thats MAD. Thats Mutually Assured Destruction. Its why the USA and Soviet Union didn't fight each other in a war since World War 2, during the Cold War, but rather fought 'proxy wars'. Because of MAD. They could not dare to start a war directly with each other because of this principal, and in particular, because it was guaranteed by those boomers. Oh, did I mention, the USA has 14 Ohio class subs operating as boomers (another 4 are used in shorter range guided missile submarines which would be used in conventional wars if needed). All of the five navies that operate SSBNs submarines (SS) that are nuclear powers (N) with ballistic missiles (B) hence SSBN - have them as nuke boats which have so much excess power out of their private personal nuclear power plant - imagine having a personal nuke powerplant just for 177 people? Your iPhone would never be out of juice haha except, oops, the submarine hull won't let the signal through, not to mention the approx 200 meters (600 feet) under water that they typically operate in. And yes, some subs come home then to pick up supplies and rest for the crew but the sub doesn't need to be refueled until the nuke rods need to be replaced on its reactor, so they run for years on the same fuel. They just leave the port, dive, and then go deep and silent, undetected, to wait in case they are needed to destroy another country. Other than that, its almost never that they are called to do anything less strategic like go spying on a rogue nation's business. They lie far away in the oceans and stay deep. They climb to shallow depths at pre-set time intervals to go listen to the special radio that operates moderately deep into water - and I'd guess one Ohio class will always be at this shallow depth just in case of sneak attack - and then they just patrol and wait, like a guarding soldier, not expecting/hoping ever to be needed, but there, just in case. A revenge weapon.

Thats how SLBMs are DEPLOYED today but its not the limit of how they could be used. You could also launch a sneak-attack with SLBMs. This was the fear that grew in the 1970s when the US Navy found that a couple of Soviet SSBN submarines started to patrol very close to US East Coast shores. The flight time typically from land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles is about half an hour to reach the target on the other side of an ocean. But the flight time from a sub a few dozen miles off the coast near Washington DC or New York would only be a few minutes. It freaked them out - in part because Moscow is deeply inland, you can't park an Ohio class boomer in the wheat fields of Smolensk or in the Volga river to be as near to Moscow haha.. The main issue is, whether the sneak attack was intended to 'just' knock out the major civilian cities or to knock out the opponent's main military and in particular nuclear strike bases. The warhead accuracy of SLBMs at that time was not accurate enough to hit a hardened silo in Kansas where an American ICBM Minuteman missile was parked, so this scenario was mainly about possibly Soviets threatening Washington DC and New York and the other cities on the Atlantic, but it still couldn't 'win a war' but it caused great consternation.

Now. Even with that ability to near-instantly obliterate all Eastern cities - Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Richmond etc plus tons more nearby - with just one sub doing a 'Pearl Harbor' type of sneak attack - that was still balanced out by MAD, that ok, it doesn't eliminate the dozen Ohio class subs already patrolling in the world's oceans, who all will retailate and make the Soviet Union instantly obsolete. One side experiences horriffic loss of a quarter of its population dead and another quarter now terminally ill with radiation sickness to die within days, but half of America would survive and nobody in the Soviet Union would come out alive from the next two hours of total bombardment of that nation by all of the revenge weapons. This is how MAD worked. Even if you could sneak up to be horrifyingly close to killing the other side, you still die. Its mutually ASSURED destruction.

That is, assuming that both sides behave RATIONALLY. Now when has our Fearless Leader been rational there over at Pottsylvania? Now this is like giving a loaded gun to a 3 year old. We REALLY cannot expect that kid to always behave rationally and not kill or maim someone with that gun, by accident or in a sudden moment of a childish tantrum. Thats Kim Jong-Un exactly. He's even more childish than Donald Trump.

THE ATTACK OPTION

The way our SLBM systems have evolved to be so ridiculously expensive is because they were designed to be the ultimate last line of revenge. They evolved to go deeper, stay underwater longer, with missiles of even more range, more capacity in missile tubes, and more warheads of larger yield and more accuracy. The Ohio class boats (submarines are always called boats, never ships) cost 2 Billion dollars each. Its replacement class is the same size but will cost 4 Billion dollars per boat by current estimates. For that specialized use, the boomer designs of all navies have become quite similar in concept, obviously being nuclear powered to allow that very long stay under water (they generate their own clean air from sea water). And boats of this type of cost are luckily way too far beyond the reach of our Fearless Lunatic in North Korea.

But if one wanted to use a ballistic missile subs for ATTACK instead of being the ultimate last line of defense, then it REALLY changes the game. Then you could use a very modest-cost modern-ish but larger attack sub, as a reasonable-price DIESEL sub. Like most subs of most navies in use today. The major navies operate nuclear powered submarines also as 'attack submarines' because the nuke power gives many gains over the far cheaper option of diesel power - to not all nuke subs are 'boomers'. But yeah. Most subs operated by most navies are simpler diesel-engined submarines with also battery operation that can stay underwater for days. They need to come up to get fresh air because diesel engines need air and obviously the humans underwater would eventually suffocate when the oxygen runs out, but ever since late World War 2, the diesel submarines have had snorkel breating devices which means that the submarine does not need to surface fully to recharge its batteries with its diesel engines, it just comes to periscope depth (stays under water but the periscope comes above the waves) and the snorkel is raised which allows air to be taken in without water coming in accidentally.

A World War 2 non-snorkel type of submarine that we see in all the submarine movies had to surface about every day to recharge its batteries and get fresh air. They did that at night. But with the advent of radar, they became vulnerable to be discovered and were hunted of course as we also know from WW2. But with the snorkel, now the sub can stay underwater essentially as long until food and diesel fuel run out, provided nobody notices the periscope type of protrusion out of the sea. Again, do this at night, out not near the shore but far in the ocean, and listen with your hydrophones to make sure no ships are nearby, and voila! You can move being essentially invisible to almost anywhere on the open oceans and not be discovered. Now, there are MANY modern ways to detect subs of any type including magnetometers and infrared and other methods but these are mostly only deployed near the shores or at some specific 'belts' and not universally. Other than occasionally spotting SOME diesel sub (possibly) at a specific location, the only other way to keep track of Uncle Lunatic's new ballistic missile threat - is to start to shadow all his subs, with nuclear powered attack subs. Even that is not in any way as easy as they say in the movies haha.

A current North Korean diesel submarine cannot create much damage. It can fire torpedoes or short-range missiles maybe to destroy another ship. It could have some short-range anti-aircraft missiles onboard and shoot down an airplane or two. But it can't do anything mroe than nuisance harm (while killing dozens like the North Koreans are often apt to do with their Southern neighbor like one of their subs did sink a South Korean warship a few years ago). But a diesel boat with even a few SLBMs onboard - if they had a single warhead each - now suddenly North Korea HAS the ability to go and destroy Los Angeles. And with say 4 missiles installed onto four lanchers on the boat, from one location on the Eastern Pacific they could destroy not just LA but also San Diego and its giant naval base, plus San Francisco and Silicon Valley. All with one diesel sub and 4 SLBMs of modest range and only a single simple warhead of about Nagasaki bomb explosive power yield ie 20 kilotons.

A North Korean diesel sub, with 4 such shortish-range SLBM missiles of only 500 kilometer (320 mile) range could easily from a point 140 kilometers (85 miles) off the shore of California do that destruction. The longer range Kim Jong-Un's SLBM missile can have, the further out the sub can go and hide, until its time comes to attack. And now the cat-and-mouse game becomes a nightmare. An modern Arleigh Burke class US Destroyer with its Aegis radar at about 50 meter (150ft) height from sea level will only see a horizon to 25km (16 miles). It would take something near the total US Navy capability just to patrol the massive sea in the viable launch area to discover the snorkel when it comes up to breathe fresh air. Thats assuming it IS there to begin with. It could of course go patrol first somewhere far out in the Pacific (hide under that horrible patch of filth and discarded plastic waste collecting in the North Pacific). The North Korean sub could get its last fresh air well out of range, then go underwater on its attack and never even come to periscope depth and launched under water once it was inside its radius of the missile attack.

One North Korean diesel boat HAS been fitted with at least one launch tube because they TESTED it (and it worked). Now it is only a matter of time when a boat with at least one launch tube will have a functioning SLBM missile with a nuclear warhead. And likely, the sub will be modified for anything from 4 to 8 launch tubes, I'd guess. The missiles will be relatively short range, considering even the limitations of the submarine itself, so I'd say probably in the 1,000 km range (650 miles) give or take 50%. But this is now a terror weapon. North Korea COULD wipe out Japan. Four or six nuke bombs would not kill 115 million people but one nuke on Tokyo, another on Osaka, and at least two more.. Japan would be on its knees. Or South Korea, obviously. But Kim Jong Nutcase doesn't NEED an SLBM to launch a nuke attack on his Southern border. He has tons of tactical ballistic missiles simliar to the Scud missiles Saddam Hussein used, to fire at South Korea. No, these SLBM's are intended to scare America and Japan. And I betcha NOW they are scared. They were not on Purple day last week but they are now, after this test. North Korea can be now assumed to have at least one operational SLBM boat, and now the panic becomes - how to detect and track them.

And don't think you're safe in Washington DC or New York. If Kim Jong Wacko wanted to attack the USA, he has the time and he can attack any part of it, by just telling his sub crew to sail there. The Germans in World War 2 operated some of their subs sending them all the way to the Pacific, around Africa. Sure it takes a couple of months but they'll get there. It would be even more of a propaganda victory if Kim Jong-Dumb to destroy Washington DC and New York, than for him to destroy Los Angeles and San Francisco. But then.. if that was the plan it only takes two subs and he can do both. Remember now the mission is not to go hide for two months deep underwater silently. Its to go launch a Pearl Harbor style sneak attack on America.

He's done plenty of nutty things and provocations as did his dad and grandfather too. But this is now serious. After the first nuclear bomb test, this is the second big leap for that country to become a real threat to the USA (and Japan). Note, it already was for South Korea. Now. If Kim Jong-Un was stupid enough to actually launch such a surprise nuke attack with even two subs, 12 total missiles, all nuke warheads also detonating successfully, killing 50 million in 6 cities on the East Coast and 6 cities on the West Coast, he'd still die in the next ten minutes as the USA would launch a total retaliatory strike that flattened the highly mountaineous country. But he's a basket case. He is unstable. And he could somehow in his delusions think he can win a nuclear war.

But what about nuclear THREATS. Look at idiot Trump and his tone that he'll bully Mexico to pay for his wall. Ok thats what a childish bully would say. Luckily Trump will never be the US President. Now think about Kim Jong Un, he's an even more childish bully. And he DOES have nukes of modest capability and number - but now suddenly, for the first time, he has the ability to threaten Japan and even the USA. Up to last week the only two countries that were not formally USA allies, who had the technical military capability to attack the USA by nukes was Russia and China. Now suddenly Mad Max has that capability. So lets say Kim Jong Un does some nasty local moves with some disputed islands with South Korea. And Japan objects (with the rest of the big powers) and Kim Jong Un goes and nukes a barren JAPANESE Island somewhere on the coast. Then Kim Jong Un says that Tokyo and Osaka and Fukuoka are next, butt out Japan. Gosh, after a THIRD nuke attack on the nation (and after the nuclear reactor disaster) that could very well force a Japanese Prime Minister to resign and the government to pull out of the coalition against North Korea. Its a scenario by the way, that many in Central Europe, former Eastern Europe countries fear from Putin because it was part of the scenarios that the Soviet Union practised for. An escallation would lead to the Russians/Putin suddenly destroying with a single nuke some not capital city but 'second tier' city of a rival nation like say Gdansk in Poland or Tampere in Finland or Malmo in Sweden or Hamburg in Germany, that kind of attack. Then he'd say, your capital city is next unless you quit this conflict now, to break apart the alliance (in this case NATO or whatever the local European conflict was).

We never had a truly unstable person in charge of nukes before. Or, in case of the North Koreans, in charge of a practical threat via nukes before. The SLBM now changes that. That is why this is a big deal while most of the other North Korean tests and developments were just noise. This is now real. North Korea is in the process of having a first-strike weapon that can hit any coastal city in the USA on either shore, and likely can have its boat or boats patrolling within striking range as early as within some months and definitely by tehe end of next year with at least one launch tube and one missile and one warhead in it for at least 500 km range from the sub to target.

A sad dangerous day for humankind. Now we have to hope for some secret ops assassination of Kim Jong Un by some secret services.

April 23, 2016

Prince. Rest in Peace. A Prince song was always there when I had the very best moments of my life. This blog article is a love song to How Prince loved - it is set to 118 beats per minute, imagine this blog performed as a dance on a hot fully packed night club floor on any Saturday night.

I don’t want to die / I want to dance my life away /

..to dance my life away. Today I don’t want to talk about death, I don’t want to talk about loss. I want to talk about love. Prince loved life. Prince loved people. Prince loved happiness and laughter. Prince was shy but on stage he came alive. Prince loved music (of every kind, consider how different a song Manic Monday the pop song by The Bangles is from Stand Back the rock anthem by Stevie Nicks formerly of Fleetwood Mac - both songs written by Prince). Prince loved women. Prince loved dancing (essentially all his great loves were great dancers). And Prince clearly loved to be in love, he would go through women in rather quick succession. But what is obvious is the love, including the love of love.

For Prince love was inseparable from music and never far from the dance floor. He wrote beautiful love ballads like the The Most Beautiful Girl (which he wrote for Mayte Garcia his first wife who also was a dancer and backup singer on his band) or tear-out-your-ears awefully heartbreaking crushing suicidally horrible love songs of loss, like Nothing Compares to You (I hate that song so much with a passion, only a suicidal Finn living in Lapland could possibly identify with that song, and even then only on the last of the sunless nights of the arctic North; yet its one of the bestselling songs in the world and obviously Sinead O’Connor’s biggest hit - by a mile). Yes, Prince was a master song writer of true iconic hits of any genre.

But HIS genre was dance music. MOST of his love songs - to his women he most loved - they were DANCE songs. Not ballads, slow songs, his love songs were uptempo ‘fast songs’ for the dance floor. They were songs of raw energy and raw emotion, often of erotic, hungry, passionate love. That is what Prince was. And while so many of his hit DANCE tunes indeed epic dance anthems were like that, they would be lost in the shuffle, behind the biggest iconic Prince classics like When Doves Cry and Purple Rain and Little Red Corvette etc. If most fans of Prince’s music were asked to list 10 best Prince songs, they would be almost certain not to include something like Erotic City or Dirty Mind. Yet these are in every DJ’s collection as tunes that will always work, any audience.

And here we have the particular purple lining to Prince’s legacy, as fans of music. He wrote some of his most sold biggest monster-hit songs - when he himself was in love (how surprising is that) as songs he GAVE to his loves of his life. THEY - the women- then went on to record those songs, which almost invariably became also the biggest hits of that woman’s career. And for most of us, we have no idea we are enjoying a Prince invention, when we listen to those songs and like them. Its like a magical purple echo bouncing off other great (usually female) singers. So I wanted to write this blog, with my heavy heart mourning his death, by celebrating how he loved. Not who he loved (there were others too) or celebrating Prince himself although that invariably comes through. This blog article is a love letter to HOW he loved. Because Prince was first and foremost a dancer - the Fred Astaire of our generation, a mile stronger than say Michael Jackson or James Brown or Justin Bieberlake. Yes, he mastered 27 musical instruments and was arguably the best living guitarist etc, but first and foremost he was a DANCER. Prince didn’t sing, "I don’t want to die, I want to sing my life away." He didn’t sing, "I don’t want to die, I want to play guitar my life away." It was "to dance my life away." He was a dancer first. Its obvious from every song, from every video, and gosh, from every stage performance he ever did. But more than that, it was his loves, his women, THEY were all dancers. An it was how Prince was with them. It was how Prince loved. Dance. And songs of dance. Songs to dance to. Love songs to dance to. This is a love letter to HOW he loved. A very uniquely purple way to love. This is such a quintessentially Princely way to live, how he loved. So consider this blog as a dance. First positions please. Maestro, can we have some music...

PATRICE RUSHEN

So lets start with his early crush. Prince was smitten by the pianist R&B star and songwriter Patrice Rushen. That name probably means nothing to you if you weren’t deeply into 1970s and 1980s ‘black’ music but please just trust me, she was and still is a highly rated musician who played with tons of big names and had R&B hits. The one cross-over Top 40 hit of hers was called ‘Forget Me Nots’ which wasn’t in any way a massive hit that everybody would recognize - as sung by Patrice. That song then became Will Smith’s global monster hit Men In Black (and the movie theme song). THAT song was written by Patrice Rushen yes. Same song also became George Michael’s comeback’s biggest global smash, Fast Love. THAT song yes, written by Patrice Rushen. Ok, a VERY legitimate 1970s star of the R&B music scene and obviously a woman who wrote amazing dance music - like straight aimed at Prince’s heart. But Prince was 4 years younger than Patrice, and at that age around age with him age 20 and her age 24 if the woman is so much older, yeah, it often is that she may look at the young whippersnapper as not mature enough for her, and even as Prince tried very hard to make the passes at her, she rejected him. Prince wrote one of his early hits, I Want To Be Your Lover as a love song to Patrice Rushen and says so in the liner notes of the album. It was written for her. That's where our journey starts. But lets continue with Patrice as this then takes a bizarre wonderfully purple turn.

Prince was brilliant in imagining how another musician might play a song, and tailored music to the others. So his first attempt at this was a song he wrote for and offered to Patrice Rushen (she turned it down, with hindsight, its no doubt like that record producer who turned down the Beatles because guitar music was not going to last or that movie producer who turned down George Lucas on that silly space cowboy movie idea Star Wars). Prince wrote the song, put it on his album and sang it himself. Later a great woman singer who was not Prince’s girlfriend decided to do a cover version of THAT song, recognizing how much its a clear hit - for a female singer - waiting to be released. That woman was Chaka Khan and her biggest hit is the remake of Prince’s song written for Patrice Rushen to record. The song is I Feel For You. This song:

Baby, baby when I lay with you /There's no place I'd rather be /Can't believe, can't believe it's true /The things that you do to me /

I Feel For You is not just the the biggest hit of Chaka Khan’s long musical career, it was a chart-topper on the R&B and dance music charts of the year, a worldwide hit and reached number 3 on the Billboard main Top 100 chart. It won a Grammy award as the best R&B song of the year and has been done by several artists since then. It is Chaka Khan’s signature song. (It was kicked off the number 1 position on the dance & R&B charts by Prince’s own monster hit 1999). Its music video was highly popular. And the lasting life of that song attests to it, any club any disco can play it today and it will fill the floor. Everybody who dances knows this song. Its an icon of its era. Prince wrote it for Patrice Rushen to record (and she turned it down..). Prince then recorded it himself onto his album but knew its a woman’s song, so Prince never released the single himself. A monster world-wide dance anthem sitting essentially as ‘filler’ on an early Prince album. This is how Prince loved. He wrote love songs to his loves. I didn't say about his loves or for his loves. Prince wrote loves songs to his loves (for them to record). So now we, as his audience, can still enjoy and share in the loves of Prince and his amazing creativity. .

VANITY

Then his first and perhaps biggest love. Vanity. Denise Matthews a singer, songwriter, actress, model and yes of course, dancer, was the first big love in Prince’s life. He convinced her to go by the name of Vanity. Her biggest absolute monster dance anthem was Nasty Girl. On any day, If I was to pick only one song as the best dance song ever, I could pick Nasty Girl. It topped the dance and R&B charts of course and has been done by other artists many times since. It was Vanity’s signature song. I saw a recent video of Beyonce doing Nasty Girl in her stage show. Its one of the most iconic songs in dance and disco music history. It also had a music video so steamy, hot, sexy, erotic, suggestive - for its time in early 1980s - that EVERYBODY banned it. It wasn’t played on MTV. And she was a monster hit inspite of that fact just as it was emerging the new truth that you had to have a hit music video in MTV heavy rotation else you could not have a hit song. She’s one of the last to do it without a video to help - not because she didn’t have a video but because the TV stations refused to play it for being too raunchy. Now, for us in the 21st century this is lame and mild and borderline corny with not a hint of anything to worry anybody. But here is Vanity 6 doing Nasty Girl:

That's right, it's been a long time /Since I had a man that did it real good /If you ain't scared, take it out /I'll do it like a real live nasty girl should /

This is Prince in love. Its an erotic love song and dance song, for the woman. Prince could not sing that song himself (he’s written hundreds of erotic songs from a man’s point of view). Its a woman’s song, to her man. Prince loved Vanity so much, he not just gave her the song, he said she should claim to have written it herself (to help her with her musician career). But Prince was not done. He dated Vanity for several years and Prince wrote tons of music - and a big role in his first movie script - Purple Rain - for Vanity. He produced her first album and built a girl band for her (Vanity 6, which obviously only had 3 girls, typical Prince goofiness and unlimited sense of humor). I could write a book about their love affair and its end. Vanity left Prince and went onto a solo career which fizzled but she acted in some movies, eventually did a Playboy shoot, and had several modest hits in her musical career. She later abandoned the stage name of Vanity. But going back to their time together, back then they were working on Vanity’s second album and Prince wanted another monster hit for her on that album. So Prince wrote Sex Shooter.

APOLLONIA

Sex Shooter, gosh, that is another absolute total tear-the-house-down monster anthem on dance floors, which will pack the floor every time still now, 30 years later. If I was asked to pick the best dance song of all time, on any given day, I would be so torn, but I could easily pick... Sex Shooter. Its that massive. It is EXACTLY as good as the incomparably good Nasty Girl. But it was not released by Vanity, it was released by Prince’s next protege and at least briefly a love interest, Patricia Apollonia Kotero. Prince shortened her name to Apollonia and replaced Vanity in the band which now became Apollonia 6. Here is the video to Apollonia 6 doing Sex Shooter.

Sex Shooter is the biggest hit of Apollonia’s modest music career and her signature song. It only reached number 7 on the Billboard dance chart and also number 7 on the R&B chart. It only briefly visited the bottom of the main Top 100 chart. Sex Shooter was one of the many songs to be on Prince’s movie Purple Rain and had obviously also a music video to it. The song has far outlasted its modest commercial success since, and has had several cover versions done by many artists since. Now while we are on the subject, Sex Shooter is a MAN’s erotic song, but sung by a woman.

Yes its kinky isn’t it? Thats Prince and his erotic imagination, easily placing his mind inside that of a woman or using a song to help the woman get into his mind. His way of loving gives us all this legacy of magnificent dance music that also helped society see more of the hang-ups it had with sex. While Apollonia had the love interest role also in the movie, she wasn’t actually in any real way Prince’s longer-lasting flames and this song was indeed not written for her, it was written for Vanity when Prince still deeply loved her. And as luck would have it, the internet is a wonderful thing and I was able to find a demo recording of the original Vanity version of the song. (I personally hate the production version in this, the musical production on the Apollonia version is far better - BUT in terms of the singing voice, gosh this Vanity version is even better than Apollonia’s classic). Enjoy:

Now, sadly Denise Matthews aka Vanity died a few weeks before Prince did. What a sad coincidence. They were both 57 years of age. But they were the first real love for both, they both loved music and dance and in heaven they are now united once again. And in Vanity’s death we discovered another part of Prince’s way of writing love songs to his women. When Prince heard Vanity had died, in his next concert he dedicated a song to her. No he didn’t play Nasty Girl or Sex Shooter. We didn’t know there is a third MASSIVE Prince tune that he clearly wrote for her, and the one Prince obviously most associated with Vanity - and now when we consider the three songs as a love song trilogy, it tells us so much about what attracted Prince to Denise Matthews. The song is one of Prince’s first massive hits, Dirty Mind from 1980. And I am certain most who like Prince’s music over the years will not remember Dirty Mind because it was so far into his early career. It was well before Purple Rain, two whole years before even 1999. Let me first show you the video to Dirty Mind then lets talk about this song and its meaning to me.

Dirty Mind was not a monster hit even in R&B and dance charts, it peaked at number 5 and didn’t enter the main Billboard 100. For me as a dancing DJ young 20 year old nightcrawler clubhopper, I already liked that young American artist known as Prince. I had liked his previous hit Uptown, but up to this song, Prince to me was just one of many great funk dance music artits like say Rick James or One Way or Hot Chocolate. Then I heard Dirty Mind and I knew Prince was a genius and this was literally the first of so many Prince hits that to me were literally the ‘best song ever’ for many weeks in a row, while rushing to the dance floor. This song, Dirty Mind, convinced me to become a life-long Prince fan. His previous dance tracks were good. This was brilliant. Maybe it was the dancer in me, or the DJ in me, why I saw it from this song but go back and ask my friends who knew me in 1981 to name the best dance music artists, I would from that point on, whatever two or three I’d name Prince was one, often the first. It was due to Dirty Mind. How amazing now to find out, one of my all time fave Prince tunes sung by him himself, was a love song written for Vanity, a woman singer I also loved..

In my daddy's car /It's you I really want to drive /Underneath the stars /I really get a dirty mind /Whenever you're around /

The song arrived in Finland very late in 1980 or early 1981, that was how music spread back then before the internet or even digital music on CDs. I heard it at the night clubs/discos first. And those few who might read this blog who knew me in 1980 or 1981 will also identify with this next part. Like Prince with his Vanity, so too me and that one same girl in my life those years 1980 and 1981 - we both loved this song. She too, my ‘Vanity’ was an amazing dancer and gosh, now as I think back, she looked a lot like Vanity too haha. Meanwhile, lets say enough time has passed that I am not spilling any sensitive secrets, lets say Dirty Mind connected for her and me in many subtle ways too. I bet Prince thought back many times to those early days with Vanity that perhaps he should have married her. Like how someone else as he slowly matured, thought back to that one girl of the early 1980s. What I didn’t ever know until now and now am so happy to know, is that it too was a love song. Yes, exactly that raw, youthful passionate erotic love bubbling over.. It forms the perfect third piece of a trilogy. Nasty Girl is the Sex Shooter with the Dirty Mind. Dirty Mind, a love song about Vanity by Prince. How fiftting. They are singing it together now in Heaven’s biggest stage.

SUSANNA HOFF

But while Apollonia was not a big love of Prince, he did clearly find her attractive and appealing at least initially. So yes, he wrote a love song for her too. Not as deep, hard-hitting erotic - and not even particularly danceable. A pop tune. Once that now with hindsight clearly conveys also the level of their intimacy. They were not much deeper than close friends, there was no Nasty Girl Sex Shooter Dirty Mind games in this relationship, which rather consisted of.. Manic Mondays.

He tells me in his bedroom voice /"C'mon honey, let's go make some noise" /

Manic Monday was the first big hit for the upcoming girl band The Bangles, who would go onto even bigger fame but it hit number 2 on the main US Billboard chart and number 2 also in the UK (Manic Monday was blocked from taking the number 1 position by... Prince’s own massive hit Kiss). I don’t want to dwell on this song as its not core Prince style love song of erotic dance passion, its a goofy light pop song. BUT it was intended for Apollonia, to be a duet together with Prince onto her second album but Prince decided that her voice didn’t work for the song (or perhaps, just perhaps Prince had grown tired of Apollonia by now). But also we need to note.. Prince dated Susanna Hoffs the singer-guitarist of The Bangles (that's why they were given the song). And obviously, she’s not the greatests dancer.. that was not meant to be. Because Prince did have his eyes on someone who really was a magnificent dancer and musician.

But let me still stay a moment on Apollonia Kotero. Prince’s Raspberry Beret (that some count as his best song, eternally in my Top 5 best Prince tunes) might also be a hidden love song but about Apollonia, not too bright but she knew how to get her kicks, went riding on the back of his bike, and that raspberry beret from a second-hand-store. This is not Vanity by any stretch and its definitely not Patrice Rushen. Also the video's animation parts feature a woman who is very much like Apollonia. I think the song is about Apollonia and there is some gossip suggesting that too but I haven't seen anything solid. Walking in through the out-door, out-door. I remember the first time I heard the song I thought of one of my early flames who was like that, a total ditzy airhead but sexy hot as anything you could imagine. I think Raspberry Beret is also a love song written to or about an actual Prince love interest when he was still in love or infatuated with her, written about Apollonia.

That's when I saw her, Ooh, I saw her /She walked in through the out door, out door /She wore a raspberry beret /The kind you find in a second hand store /

SHEILA E

Then came the long relationship for Prince, Sheila Escovedo remarkably talented drummer going by the name of Sheila E and also singer-songwriter-dancer. Virtuoso drummer. And a great great great dancer. A year older than Prince, Prince was her fan from long before they met. And they had a tumultous in-and-out affair that lasted many years and had them engaged at one point. She often toured with him on his band or as a guest.

With Sheila E, Prince had a genuine writing partner by someone who was already an established songwriter before Prince. So Prince didn’t have to give his writing credits to her for helping her build a reputation. It also produced songs that were not as tightly ‘hit songs’ how Prince created them, very tightly packed and with a clear end. Instead, they were invariably songs for the drummer, so she could improvize and jam on the song, with versions that were long, too long, even longer and painstakingly long please stop already boring jazz odysseys - at the end. Because Sheila E wanted to do her drumming (Prince himself is also a virtuoso drummer but hey, Prince had mastered 27 musical instruments so of course he was) They would often take turns on the drums on stage. The first of Prince’s songs for and with Sheila E was The Glamorous Life

Boys with small talk and small minds /Really don't impress me in bed /She said, I need a man's man, baby, diamonds and furs /Love would only conquer my head /

She wants to lead a glamorous life /She don't need a man's touch /She wants to lead a glamorous life /Without love, it ain't much /

The Glamorous Life is Sheila E’s long career’s biggest hit and her signature song. topped the Billboard dance charts and reached number 7 on the Billboard main Top 100 chart. It was nominated for a Grammy. Now for me personally, I liked the song but its not one of my all time favorites, not even close. I think she’s hot. I like her drumming and dancing but this song, it doesn’t get deep into my soul. Its not one I’d spin if I was DJ’ing and needed to set the dance floor on fire. Its not one I’d play if I was in a bad mood and wanted to hear something great. Its a nice dance song yes, nothing more to me. One of thousands of other ‘generic’ dance songs. The song has huge following however, and talks to many people; just not me. Too jazzy, to pop not anywhere near enough funky. But she is gosh sexy and on-stage live performances of this always blow the roof off the place.

ADDENDUM 22 Sept 2016 - Note this item added. The internet is yes a wonderful thing. Gosh, there is an early demo Prince recording of the Glamorous Life (without Sheila E) two years earlier. Gosh. Its the SAME song. But the ending is a saxophone solo by Prince rather than the drum solo in the recording by Sheila E. Wow this is weird to hear, especially knowing that Prince is now dead. Enjoy. Prince demo of The Glamorous Life.

But Prince loved Sheila E for a long time and they wrote together and for the 1985 movie Krush Groove, where Sheila E made her movie debut (Prince is not in the movie) she needed a hit song to play. Here we get Prince doing a typical Prince love song, a love duet, the way he always wanted to do it. With a collaborating partner. We get A Love Bizarre.

The moon up above, it shines down upon our skin /Whispering words that scream of outrageous sin /We all want the stuff that's found in our wildest dreams /It gets kinda rough in the back of our limousine /

First a joke here. I always like to think of the song as A Love Bazaar and the lyric in the song where they make love on a bed of flowers. I always heard that lyric to say ‘make love on a pedestal’ Pedestal like you might put a statue on a pedestal, not hearing ‘bed of flowers’ until at some point in the internet era, I finally saw the lyrics and laughed myself silly. Making love on a bed of flowers makes total sense where making love on a pedestal was too weird even for Prince’s wicked wacky sense of humor (it was after all, a song about bizarre love where the back of the limousine was not too rough).

A Love Bizarre is Sheila E’s concert song where she jams and dances and sings but does not drum. Its a love duet - uptempo obviously - and she usually will flirt with someone from the band or the audience during this song - or of course its a mad erotic dance extravaganza whenever they do it as a pair with Prince.

A Love Bizarre reached number 1 on the Dance chart and number 11 on the main Billboard Top 100 chart. It is - honestly - if I had to pick one all-time greatest dance song ever made - gosh, on any good day, A Love Bizarre would be it. Its as perfect as Nasty Girl. Its as perfect as Sex Shooter. Its gosh, its a perfect amazing astonishing dance-floor-scorching dance anthem. (I have the videos of all of these on my phone and I think in all fairness, of the perhaps a dozen songs that I might think of as the best dance song ever, A Love Bizarre is probably tied for Jody Watley’s Looking For A New Love - as the song I most seek from my phone on any random moment - that is what I want to hear now). Incidentially on the song Prince sings credited backups but on the music video the parts that Prince sings are mouthed by a band member so most people didn’t notice that A Love Bizarre is, as originally released in 1985 - a duet between PRINCE and Sheila E.. if it was billed as a genuine duo it would have hit number 1 and if they’d done the video together, it would have been a global massive monster. But obviously, Sheila E wanted to have it on her terms, Prince didn’t want to steal her thunder as we saw so many times before, he often didn’t even credit his own writing under his own name, often his writing was under some obscure name just to hide his role initially. Later it of course came out that ‘Christopher’ who wrote Manic Monday was actually Prince etc (Christopher was the name of Prince’s character in his movie Under the Cherry Moon). And back to Sheila E, she also performed A Love Bizarre coutless times with Ringo Starr when she toured with him for many years.

SHEENA EASTON

But as the love affair between Sheila E and Prince went hot and cold, Prince had eyes wandering to other hot babes and up about next came British popstar Sheena Easton (best known for singing the title song to the 007 James Bond move For Your Eyes Only). Sheena had a great voice and was also - duh - a great dancer. So they got romantically involved and Prince wrote her a song that was pure Prince erotic fantasies, Sugar Walls.

Sugar Walls topped the US Dance charts and reached number 9 on the Billboard Top 100. It was her biggest dance hit while most of her previous career was light and slower tempo pop songs by which she had topped the main charts in the USA and Britain and around the world. For me Sugar Walls was a good dance tune, not the best of that time and not the best of her career - I preferred her previous dance song Strut. But technically again, as to her dance music part of her long prolific and successful music career, her bestselling dance song among a dozen hit dance tracks written by many writers including partly herself, this Prince tune was (of course) her pinnacle. But this was a Prince style love song. So of course Sugar Walls shocked America. Sweet little British pop princess Sheena Easton who sang mindless drivel silly pop about how her man takes the morning train - suddenly turned into the vicious sex priestess preying on the minds of young America. Her song was listed as one of the 15 most corruptive songs in popular culture in the Reagan era when Republicans in Congress wanted to bring about some puritanical values of just say no to drugs and no more pornography and rap artists should go to jail and... Sheena Easton in her song was openly inviting her lover to come spend the night inside my sugar walls. But Prince was not done with Sheena Easton. Prince wrote a song for them to sing as a duet which was You Got the Look

Well here we are, ladies and gentlemen /The dream we all dream of /Boy versus girl in the world series of love /

You Got the Look reached number 2 on the main Billboard Top 100 chart and number 11 on the R&B chart (but didn’t hit the dance chart). The song to me is perfection again in dance music. I do not say this often (but have said repeatedly in this article). And to be clear, while I love so many of Prince’s songs that he himself sang, say Raspberry Beret is one of my absolute fave songs of all time - that is not perfection in a dance tune. While it IS a GREAT dance song but 1999 is clearly better. As a dance song, Raspberry Beret is too ‘pop-musicy’ Lets Go Crazy is to rock-musicy, Mountains is too mellow, while yes they all work very well as dance tunes - they are Prince songs so of course they do - yet they don't grab you like say Get Off or Kiss. So understand what I mean. As a DJ in the booth - or me, as a dancer on the floor - what is a song that just grabs you and kicks you into another gear and sets the floor on fire. Yes, thats 1999 obviously. Or its Cream. Think now purely about the packed dance floor. The most pure dance songs at their best. What is the best Prince dance song. To me if really really really forced to pick of his own-released songs, there are three between which I can no longer decide. It started with Controversy in 1981, then its Erotic City from 1984 (not released on its own, it is on the B side of Lets Go Crazy) and then its You Got the Look.

So quick pre-rebuttal. The best song Prince ever made that works best on the dance floor to get crowds to go wild is 1999. Its a fantastic dance song that hit number 1 on the dance charts in 1982 and everybody knows it and its as perfect as a dance song can ever possibly be. But for me, its predecessor also number 1 hit dance song, Controversy is that tiniest 0.1% even better. To me, 1999 is a great follow-up single to the masterpiece Controversy where most follow-ups are duds. But while 1999 crossed over massively and is Prince’s signature tune, and it will set the dancefloor on fire, it is not perfection to my taste. And its a tiny variance, but I remember back in 1982 when 1999 was released, even back then, I preferred to hear the older Controversy while I still totally loved 1999. So don’t argue this point with me, I concede that most DJ’s too would probably rank 1999 ahead of Controversy but to me, Controversy was the slightest bit better yet, Am I black or white / Am I straight, or gay / Controversy / Was it good for you / Was I what you wanted me, to be / Controversy / Do I believe in God / Do I believe in me / Controversy. Its perfection in a dance anthem. 1999 is 99.9% of perfection but Controversy is perfection.

Then the second book-end to the ultimate period of where Prince to me, made his best dance music was You Got the Look in 1987. Yes, many more great dance anthems still followed like Alphabet Street, Partyman, Get Off, Cream and Sexy MF - and each of those five could be ranked in any DJ’s top favorites but for me, You Got the Look is the last of the perfect Prince dance anthems. Pure perfection. And between that period, a really amazing period of monster hits including Kiss. Another which most DJs and fans would list, this is his best dance tune (and argue whether Prince’s version is better or Tom Jones’s cover version with The Art of Noise which is yes just about perfect too). So this period is really the golden age of Prince, think about it (as DANCE music) Sexuality, 1999, Little Red Corvette, Delirious, Lets Go Crazy, When Doves Cry, Purple Rain, I Would Die For You, Raspberry Beret, America, Kiss, Mountains, Anotherlover, Girls & Boys, Sign of The Times. Thats a whole night at a disco right there. I can totally accept anyone arguing for any one song from that list, but for me, the third absolute untainted perfection in a dance music song, which I cannot pick which is best, to go with Controversy and You Got the Look - is not on that list. Its Erotic City released in 1984.

Erotic City was never released on its own, it is the B-side to the single Lets Go Crazy. But all DJs knew in 1984 to flip over Letsgo and play this, about the funkiest nastiest greatest dance tune ever made. If we cannot make babies / Maybe we can have some fun..

Yes you can have your own list. But for me, I love about a dozen Prince songs truly massively deeply do. But at my core I am a dancer and I love dance music and that part touches the deepest soul in my heart. It beats in my veins. And Prince knew dance music, Prince lived and breathed dance music. He oozed dance music so much he regularly spilled monster dance music hits to those around him. And of his best, his absolutely best, his very core of his music as dance music, the three I cannot decide among are Controversy, Erotic City and You Got the Look. It truly does not get any better than that. Anyone, any age, any song, any time. Public Enemy Bring the Noise. Cameo Word Up. Donna Summer Hot Stuff. David Guetta and Rihanna Whose That Chic. LL Cool J Mama Said Knock You Out. The Gap Band Burn Rubber. 50 Cent Candy Store. Mary J Blige Family Affair. What is the best dance song ever made, at that level it just peaks and it depends on your mood of the moment. But for just about any other artist, I KNOW which is the best song they made (as a dance song in particular) but not for Prince. I can’t pick between Controversy, Erotic City or You Got the Look. They are perfection - as a dance song. You will not get me off the floor when any of those would play, no matter how near total collapse I might be haha.. They are perfection.

Now lets get back to You Got the Look and Sheena Easton. So lets go to the video then. This is the love song duet between Sheena and Prince. It features the immortal line Boy versus girl, in the World Series of love. A typically passion-packed erotic loves song/duet by Prince for his current flame. So now look at the video. Who is there prominently on drums and not in any subtle ways challenging Sheena? Its Sheila E of course. They essentially fight for Prince in the video but then.. who gets him? Its the best dancer of the three, the backup dancer Cat who was a regular for years on Prince’s tours.

You Got the Look - the music video - describes a love triangle (or quadrangle) and it also mimicked very well how the women were in Prince’s life at that time. How fitting that Prince actually married - yet another backup dancer Mayte Garcia a little before this record this record was released. They were married for four years, and tried to have children. Mayte had one miscarriage and then gave birth to Prince’s son Boy Gregory who died only weeks after birth due to Pfeiffer syndrome. Later Prince married again Manuela Testolini in 2001 and they divorced seven years later. Prince had a tumultuous love life and never stayed with the same woman very long. His many other loves were quite fabulous too including Kim Basinger, Carmen Electra (no surpise that name is a Prince invention for her), Madonna (are we surprised, the best dancer-singer-woman the white race has ever created and only half a step from where best black dance divas are like Beyonce, Rihanna, Jody Watley or Whitney Houston. Madonna sounded so ‘black’ that early on her record label didn’t dare to release her picture fearing black radio stations would stop playing her records), and many others. But that later period also featured a more mellowing, aging Prince with more melodic love songs, no longer the heated passionate dance floor burners - as love songs. Which brings me back to the best Prince dance songs. Yes. For me Controversy is perfection. And so is You Got the Look. And so is, what was that third song?

All of my hang-ups are gone /How I wish you felt the same /We could fuck until the dawn /How I wish you were my dame /

Erotic City did hit number 1 on the dance chart even as it was the ‘flip side’ of the popular pop/rock tune Lets Go Crazy (the Billboard dance chart is not just sales, its also based on what DJs play in the discos and clubs). Its yet another masterpiece in the maestro’s catalogue. I’d venture to guess that most who DJ’d in clubs in the 1980s will say Erotic City is also one of their faves ahead of so many more popular pop oriented but highly danceable Prince tunes. Erotic City is pure dance energy. Pure pure pure dance energy. If we cannot make babies, maybe we can have some fun. Its yes, its on any day, the best dance song ever made, and on any day, its the best song Prince made, but on another day it might be Controversy or You Got the Look. But here’s the catch. This too is a love song for one of Prince’s main loves. Which one do you think? Yeah, the hint was in the fact that Sheila E still performs this tune regularly on her tours. Its a love song for Sheila E and she sings backup on the original song as their love affair had just started. And also note the reality in that song.. Prince was getting older, he wanted children, Sheila E said no, they were still lovers, they had fun - and soon Prince picked one of the backup dancers Mayte and married her and tried twice to have a baby (and had the son who then died). But this is again a love song and so real to his life and moments. If we cannot make babies, maybe we can have some fun / Fuck so pretty you and me, Erotic City come alive. (I apologize for the ‘fuck’ but that is in the lyric. Hey its Prince and an erotic song why do you think DJ’s love that song haha). And in the years of Prince dating Sheila E and even getting engaged with her, he wrote a second trilogy to the second big love of his life. Now its a Glamorous Life in the Erotic City seeking a Love Bizarre. And as a gift to us mere mortals, Prince through his own work and that of Sheila E's music we are left with again a wonderful dance music legacy of monster hits. This ishow Prince loved.

For that life until he finally got maried twice in a row for 11 years, in his bachelor life Prince had five loves so intense he wrote love songs about and for those women. Now while Manic Monday yes is a very popular pop tune and you can dance to it yes, I’d leave it off from a dance floor purple erotic love medley. But if we take the intended song for Patrice Rushen, then the trilogy to Vanity, adding what amounted to a second trilogy to Sheila E with Erotic City, The Glamorous Life and A Love Bizarre, plus what I guess was the romance nearing end song to Apollonia with Raspberry beret, then add the two for Sheena Easton, we get a an amazing colleciton for a DJ mix, with Prince sometimes singing alone, sometimes joining with one of the women and having both women he dated and didn’t date, in this mix of Prince’s love songs at their most pure form. For a DJ the mix goes by beat count, so lets start at the slowest tempo and work it up: this is your ultimate Prince erotic love dance song playlist that were all actual love songs written to actual existing women we all know:

Above playlist by DJ Tommy Tit may be played at any dance venues without any credit needed. All you need is love

Thats a massive dance session for any DJ while obviously all old songs (so almost nobody would play that list now unless its a club only playing old disco music) It would run about 35-40 minutes and each song would blend relatively easily into the next as the biggest jump is 4 bpm, from A Love Bizarre to I Feel for You. The artists are also by coincidence nicely spread apart. (please note, I did not verify those bpm counts, they are taken from online records from misc sources so if anyone is a DJ out there, pls first just check your own bpm counts before attempting that run haha, sometimes I find a random song is massively off in its supposed bpm record, perhaps that the sample was measured from a live version or something like that).

I knew that I love Prince’s songs. I especially love his dance songs. I didn’t know how many of his very best up-tempo dance songs were actually LOVE songs in dance tempo, that Prince wrote to the many loves of that time - essentially each of those women ALSO my fave singers and performers. Without a doubt if I had to pick the best dance song ever made, it could be Vanity with Nasty Girl, it could be Apollonia with Sex Shooter, it could be Sheila E on A Love Bizarre (with Prince singing backup), it could be Prince’s Erotic City (with Sheila E singing backup), or it could be Prince’s You Got the Look (with Sheena Easton singing backup and Sheila E on the drums). Yes, it could also be Prince’s Controversy or about a handful or two of songs by other artists. But literally five of the best dance songs ever made of which any would be my number 1 fave of that moment depending on the moment - were not only written by Prince but were LOVE songs he wrote, for women who also loved to dance, so of course they were love songs for the dance floor. Two of the five were written as duets.

I love to dance. Prince songs would make my dancing more fun. Many of the best times I ever had on that place I consider heaven on earth - a dance floor - were powered by Prince and his music. So I will end this essay with one more link but this is amazing. Of the above, the most talented of Prince’s many loves both as singer, song-writer, musician and dancer - and the longest on-and-off lover for him was Sheila E. How fitting, that after I heard of Prince’s passing, and as I was doing my tributes to him on Twitter, I found a video treasure I didn’t know existed. The Love Bazaar, the hit song A Love Bizarre did feature credited Prince singing backup to the song they wrote together with Sheila E. Its official music video is one that I have seen a thousand times and is permanently on all my phones but it does not include Prince appearing on the video, and I didn’t know of any video recording of the two performing their love duet together. And yesterday I discovered this link

Video of Prince joining Sheila E to sing their love duet A Love Bizarre dancing together, in live performance

Its as if Prince, on his way to heaven, decided to make one brief detour to one long-serving fan and DJ, to give one last curtain-call, hey Tomi, just for you, one of your fave songs, now by two of your fave artists doing it as a duet - like you’ve never seen before - as a pas-de-deux erotic love dance - like you’ve never seen before - in extended 10 minute version of the 3 minute song. This was Prince saying thank you and giving us one more spectacular performance with his longest love of his life, Sheila E. If you enjoy dance, if you enjoy Prince style music, this is for you. Enjoy

April 21, 2016

Time to examine the US Presidential race. We've just seen the release of Trump 2.0. Its is Interim Bug-Fix compared to the flawed Trump 1.0. The big change to this project is however, Trump 3.0, which is coming in July.

I’ve written several times that Trump would be a better candidate if he only had discipline and bothered to use his considerable assets well. Now we are starting to see the ‘new Trump’ in the more disciplined form, produced probably solely by Paul Manafort and starting to yield results as we saw in New York’s primary. This is different from the shoot-from-the-hip gaffe-machine that was Trump 1.0 for the previous nine months. This is Trump 2.0, the new edition. Not as much a total reboot but more like a bug-fix. Keeping to much of what made Trump so appealing to many in the Republican party but fixing many of the most glaring bugs. This is not the ‘final’ edition of ‘Campaign Trump’ which we could call Trump 3.0. That is the candidate we will see recreated for the general election, starting at the Republican Convention in July (assuming Trump wins there). Trump 3.0 will be significantly different from Trump 2.0. If we think of iPhones, Trump 1.0 is the original iPhone. Trump 2.0 is iPhone 3G, fixing most of the obvious faults but looking and feeling still quite similar. Then the real killer iPhone was the iPhone 4, quite different beast, and that is what will be coming in Trump 3.0 for the Autumn race against Hillary Clinton.

To underestand Trump 2.0, we need to first understand the truth about Trump 1.0 (not the illusions around it). Only then can we grasp the meaning of Trump 2.0 and contemplate the certain need for a total rewrite into Trump 3.0 if he does grab the nomination in Cleveland in July.

SHORT VERSION OF THIS LONG ARTICLE

I wrote a long article explaining my thinking, but now re-reading it and editing it, I know some readers of this blog won't bother to read that long a piece. So let me first give you the short version. Then for those who really want it, I have the original 'full' version of the article below.

Trump 1.0 was by design a fraud. We know now that Trump never intended to run the full race in 2016, he was supposed to get to as high as he could, expecting to get maybe to 2nd place, then end his run when the voting times came near. This was supposed to be a brand-building project for Trump brands and Trump's growing TV pundit and expert career in politics and speaking events with Republicans into the future. Because of that, Trump 1.0 was pursuing voter demographics, raising topics, creating trouble in areas most sensible 'serious' candidates who WANTED to win, didn't dare to go. They knew it was lethal to a long-term career past the summer, meaning even if they tried these mad Trumpian tactics, it would then kill them in the Autumn campaign against whoever Democrat would be the rival. You simply don't win if you start off by angering the Hispanic vote or the female vote etc. What was so bewildering to Trump's rivals and to the pundits, was how well this Trumpian strategy worked, that he soon leaped to lead the polling and then of course won so many of the states so far.

If we examine the first 9 months of Trump's campaign through the normal lens of a Presidential campaign, he seems to have gone out of his way to create essentially a mine field in front of his own path. Any one of his gaffes can be deadly against Hillary Clinton and half of what he's done can murder him already before the Convention in Cleveland. As the 'stop Trump' movement finally got its act together, and started to run ads against Trump, in Wisconsin for example, the concentrated effort against Trump (in a state that favored Cruz and was not friendly to Trump) worked. For the stop Trump movement that was almost too late. But it shows how damaging Trump's first 9 months were so far, and all those arguments against Trump will be far more powerful in a general election where Hillary would have a massive budget for negative ads running hateful Trump sound-bites all day. If we examine Trump's run in this year by that prism of a Presidential campaign, it is a shortsighted strategy at best. It might get him half-way but it guarantees a loss by November .An epic gargantuan catastrophic calamity of a loss.

But now, apply a different lens. What if Trump's purpose had nothing to do with winning and his intention was only to raise his profile with conservatives, to get some credibility having run as a candidate, and he intended to drop out by say December or early January, from about 2nd or 3rd place in the polling, weeks before Iowa voted. Then all the nastiness about Mexicans, Megyn Kelly's period and John McCain's heroism, that would be mostly forgotten and among the very edge of the Tea Party he'd be the big hero - and everybody would greet him with 'Make America Great Again' and 'Build the Wall' etc. He'd be a folk hero in the style of Sarah Palin's 'Drill Baby Drill' except with some sense to not sound quite as dumb as Palin does. Meanwhile the Republican party would be stuck with all the damage done to relations with Hispanics and women and war veterans and Musllims and Catholics and whatnot but Trump doesn't care about anybody except himself, so thats consistent with Trump. Like his numerous bankruptcies, let the other guy be the sucker with the raw deal. If Trump had not climbed to the top of the polls, if he only peaked at 2 or 3, and dropped out of the race before Iowa (as many many expected including me, early on) then this run would have been quite spectacularly successful in making Trump the most successful cross-over star between politics and business, perfectly prepared for more life on TV as the Apprentice run was clearly coming to its end with falling ratings.

Because Trump never intended to stay in the race till the end, he could say the most outrageous things ever, make the most ridiculous promises (Mexico will pay) and just postpone on whatever he had promised (list of really smart advisors on military policy, or his tax returns). Because he never intended to actually run, he never hired the ground staff needed to win in say Iowa. He never bothered to spend money on a Big Data operation. Because he got free TV media all the time, Trump never bothered to spend on TV advertising the single biggest expenditure in most campaigns, so his run was also remarkably cheap. And as Trump didn't care for WINNING, he didn't need to worry about any CONSISTENCY in his messages, meaning he never even bothered to learn about the policy aspects. It didn't matter because by the time anyone might notice some contradiction, he'd be out of the race. Hence we had the spectacle of five separate Abortion positions in three days. Any sane reasonable candidate would rush to correct a gaffe before it becomes the video clip played to devastating damage later in the political season but not Trump. He didn't CARE as he wasn't seriously running. So what if Hillary might run that sound-bite later, Trump will be out long before that happens. Or even so what if Cruz and the Stop Trump gang might get their act together and run some Trump sound-bites against him now in the Republican race, that didn't matter either. Because Trump 1.0 was never intended to run as a campaign. Only a teaser. Quit before Iowa. Trump most desperately doesn't want to show us his tax returns because he isn't as rich as he claims. This was just a branding gambit. A fraud played on the Republican party and voters, Trump never intended to run seriously for President and all his silly ideas of the wall paid by Mexico or deporting 11 million or banning Muslims or exiting NATO or arming Japan with nukes or reintroducing torture, that was all just said to get ratings. To get publicity. To get bigger audiences. Remember Trump early on, he was bragging about how Trump's presence on TV debates would boost their RATINGS.

What a bizarre thing for any politician to WASTE time talking about. Seriously? Who the hell cares if CNN's debate had 11 or 13 million viewers. The sensible politician wants to spend the RARE time he has on live TV talking about how his great vision will help America or whatever is today's talking point. NOBODY would waste ONE MINUTE voluntarily talking about a news TV show's RATINGS. Unless you're Trump who has unlimited TV visibility anyway, who is more a reality TV star than serious politician, who rally DOES care more about RATINGS than VOTES (or haha, DELEGATES). Now as we look back at the Trump 1.0 period, its clear to see, it was a fake, a fraud. Trump was playing a con on the Republican voters, promising them total Santa Claus lies with the intention to run away and let the Republicans find out later, there is no Santa Claus. Look at Trump's silly budget - the most ridiculous budget ever presented by a serious front-running candidate that would destroy the economy. This from a 'businessman'. He was not serious. Not at all. He was playing the Republicans for fools. And shame on Republican voters (and conservative media) for not picking up on it. They fell for it, line hook and sinker.

Unfortunately in that process, Trump was striken by a rare incurable disease of running for President (see Mitt Romney or Ron Paul for how devastating that can be to your life, utterly consuming it after the disease strikes). And before he could get out, Trump rose to the top of the polls. The rivals were actually far weaker than it seemed. Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Dr Ben Carson and Ted Cruz, the four who were at the top when Trump started or rose there briefly in the run since, none had any chance against Trump's unorthodox campaigning style. As Trump suddenly discovered what large political rallies feel like - when they chant your name - that creates an addiction you can't fix with anything else. There is no cure. And Trump is that talented, naturally gifted he could grow the 2,000 crowds into 5,000 crowds into 10,000 crowds - and loved it. Then, as he was leading all polls, and it really wasn't costing him much - selling hats essentially paid his way - Trump lent the campaign a few million and continued his run past the intended ending point. Now Trump 1.0 was asked to do what it was never designed to do, win elections. And it performed well in that task too. For Republican elections. To win those, Trump was now laying a massive unmarked minefield into his own political future with explosions due long before the Convention would start and lasting long past the last ballots counted in Hillary's landslide victory in November by when Trump's name would be roughly as popular in politics as Nixon. Trump could indeed feed his moron segment with ever more outrageous belligerent nasty rhetoric and keep his face on national TV by quoting Mussolini, approving of Putin, not denouncing David Duke, thinking comparisons to Hitler are nice, and feuding with the Pope. This .. from an AMERICAN politician who wants to win IN AMERICA? It was a case of digging ever deeper into the hole. But to keep winning the racist vote, that was what Trump needed to do. And it frightened the rest of the party. And indeed, Trump was still winning with this self-destructive campaign, because his rivals stayed in the race to split the rest of the Republican vote, so that up to New York's vote this week, Trump had only received 37% of the Republican votes but he had managed to turn that into 49% of the delegates. Not because Trump or his campaign is that smart, its how the Republican party rules award the delegates. Because the field was so large, it meant Trump could win with a lower percent of the vote. In any 'normal' year Trump would have lost with this strategy early on against say a John McCain in 2008 or Mitt Romney in 2012.

In some ways Trump was lucky, in other ways he was the perfect candidate for this year and this race, and in some ways his rivals were inept, incompetent and/or too confused to react. And Trump ran away with the race. On a destructive kamikazi campaign which had Trump's plane aimed for SS Republican Party intending to sink it in the general election this Autumn. So there was no convenient point to pull out - and suddenly, Trump didn't WANT to quit. He now suddely can taste winning the Presidency and he WANTS that now. He was leading the delegates and after Super Tuesday, it became clear, he can seriously win it. Ted Cruz, his closest rival had no more good states left. Trump was now likely to get the most delegates.

But as Trump's campaign was not built to run for President, it was a fake campaign to get Trump visibility, now forced to do something it was never intended to do, it did a lousy job. Its like driving a screw into the wall by using a hammer. Its gonna be messy and it won't really hold. Trump 1.0 underperformed and was a litany of amateur mistakes. Campaign manager Corey Lewandowski's silly spat with the reporter. He should have instantly apologized. Better yet Trump should have instantly apologized. Moved on, they wasted so much media time and campaign effort on that useless mission to somehow safeguard Lewandowski's reputation or Trump's - but to what good? Or what was the MORONIC decision to keep attacking the weaklings of the race while they were still in it, like Jeb Bush and Chris Christie. What Trump needed was for a fractured field so he could win the nomination. If Trump 1.0 was a serious race for President, then Trump would have focused his attacks like a LASER only on Cruz, to minimize HIS vote, but ensure as much as possible not going to Trump spilled to the others, Marco Rubio, John Kasich, Dr Ben Carson, Christie and Jeb. If Trump today had those five still in contention - all but Christie had the funds to continue - Trump would certainly clinch the nomination by June 7 and he'd be near 1,000 delegates by now. Instead silly Trump 1.0 campaign let Trump go on and play his school-yard bully games attacking Jeb, Christie, Rubio until each quit the race. Thats utterly stupid. It was constantly Trump's chief rival Ted Cruz who begged others to quit and let the race be just one-on-one Cruz vs Trump. Any slightly awake politico would get it, that if this is what Cruz desperately wants, its not a good thing for Trump to pursue it, he probably should seek the opposite.

Essentially all of Trump 1.0 behavior can be seen as excellent if the goal is to gain visbility and reputation in the Republican and conservative circles, especially near the White Supremacists and Nazi KKK edge of the Tea Party. While Trump 1.0 was indeed successful in winning the majority of contests up to now, and plurality of votes and plurality of delegates - he has SEVERELY underperformed. It was all due to SELF-INDUCED unforced DAMAGE by Trump himself. But as Trump kept racking up the wins, he didn't see the damage he was doing to his own immediate political future. Like a normal, not reinforced ship, going into an ice field with relatively thin ice. The ship could be ploughing ahead but the ice starts to rip holes into the ship which starts to take on water and essentially starts its path to sinking but as the ship still makes progress forward, the Captain gets an illusion of progress and the sounds and sights of breaking into the ice ahead obscures the simultaneous damage to the ship at the waterline - often until its too late.

Trump is a smart man and he hates any waste. What outraged him was to find out that of some states that he had won, suddenly Cruz was able to snatch an unfair share of delegates. If Trump 1.0 was performing 'well enough' to win visibility and polling and votes in primaries the actual DELEGATE battle was somehow being lost. That was all due to the fact that his campaign manager Lewandowski was totally in over his head. He had no clue how to do this part of the race. Trump 1.0 had been pushed way too far into what it was never intended to do. And they were indeed severely in trouble. This became clear to Trump just at the end of March. And Trump brought in Paul Manafort.

Manafort saw what was going on, he quickly understood this is utterly the wrong vehicle for this journey, and Trump 1.0 needed an urgent refit, to do the rush-job bug fix into Trump 2.0 (which will still see further iterations into Trump 2.1 and 2.2 in the coming weeks no doubt). Trump was still winning yes but in the delegate hunt, almost everthing about Trump 1.0 would repel most DELEGATES. And plenty of the bugs in Trump 1.0 were actually suppressing Trump's total vote so Trump 2.0 would also improve Trump's performance in the remaining primaries. Now as to Trump himself, he is one of the rare politicians who could truly pivot out of Trump 1.0 with no regrets and fully at ease because Trump 1.0 was not real. It was a creation, a fake, an act. Trump played the part of the most racist bigoted Republican he could imagine. But now as long as Manafort could well describe to Trump what his new acting role would be in Trump 2.0, he could then do that act for a couple of months. If that was what was needed, yes. And we've already seen plenty of evidence of this transition. Some parts come easily (stop the calling into talk shows, stop the nightly Twitterfloods) while others will need some prep (policy papers and speeches etc). So what we now see as the New Trump is no less the real Trump as 1.0 was because both are pure creations. Both are acts. Both are fakes. As will be Trump 3.0 which, if Trump now wins the nomination in July, we will next see. It will not be the real Trump either. Only Trump 4.0 once he would be sworn in as the next President, would reveal something akin to the real Donald Trump but don't worry, Trump will never win the general election.

So I thought through a long list of where is Trump already starting his pivots into Trump 2.0 and what are pretty obvious next steps and I summarized it into this table:

Above estimate of changes from Trump 1.0 to Trump 2.0 in April 2016 by Tomi T Ahonen, April 21, 2016This list may be freely shared and quoted

We have seen many of those changes already starting from Trump's far more Presidential victory speech after New York where he actually called Cruz "Senator Cruz" rather than "Lyin' Ted" to the attempts he is making to repair rifts with the Republican party to how much discipline he now has with no more calls to TV talk shows or late night Twitterfloods. This is a deliberate rebranding of Trump into what can only be summarized as the illusion of the 'ideal mainstream Republican candidate'. He will no longer propose any controversial positions like supporting Planned Parenthood or ending NATO or arming Japan with nuclear weapons. Trump will learn the basics of how to speak Republican, without a New York accent - so for example he will no longer need 5 separate attempts in 3 days to try to figure out how to answer the standard Abortion question. It will not convince all or even most Republicans that Trump is truly one of them but it will help Manafort convert some who are sitting on the fence. And Manafort needs every single delegate he can now find and secure. Trump will not be the nominee unless Trump can win it on the first ballot in Cleveland, because when delegates become unbound (half already by the second ballot) thats when many will desert Trump and vote for Cruz (or Kasich) instead. Trump's only one shot ever, to become the Republican nominee after the farce that was Trump 1.0, is now, to lock and secure 1,237 delegates for the first ballot in Cleveland. He can do it, but it requires discipline and a totally conventional classic mid-ground uncontroversial campaign attempting to build bridges and make friends. Yes he's a conniving snake total fraud con-artist - but this is the only path forward. And you know what, I say if Trump stays mostly gaffe-free and that Trump 2.0 I outline above even just mostly comes true - then yes, Manafort will be the hero of 2016 who rescued Trump's campaign just as it was about to implode. Of course, nothing can save Trump from Hillary in the Autumn, but that is the story of Trump 3.0, the next fake creation of the reality TV star Donald Trump that we will see for the first time in July. I have to wait for that iteration before we can talk about its specifics just like we have to wait for the iPhone 7 before I can tell you anything about how well it can do in the mobile market.

Now that was about 4,000 words. If you want the full story of the above, in another 9,000 words, follow me after the break here:

April 19, 2016

I've been reporting quarterly the installed base of smartphones for a long while now and I believe this blog has been the only source in the public domain to give that count, also including the market shares by operating system. That is probably the most relevant number to most who read data on smartphones ie the developers and various players in the ecosystem. Only the handset manufacturers are really interested in the raw sales numbers and market share that is reported by the other industry analysts quarterly, and all others would then need to try to estimate that number relating to the installed base.

Now that we had that wonderful Pew survey of international mobile phone ownership by adults (ie 'unique owners') and I did some deep analysis of that data projecting from it global numbers and adjusting for the missing youth phone ownership for total global per-capita unique owners, we have some very rare data on the total planetary ownership of mobile phones. But that data also is a check on the total installed base of all phones in use, whether smartphones or dumbphones, which included multiple phone ownership. And the data I've been reporting here quarterly has recently had a creeping error, which I estimate started around year 2003. The recent first-time mobile phone buyers are far poorer than those of the past (who also often buy very low-cost phones whether smartphones or dumbphones; and often buy second-hand phones) They tend not to afford to replace their phones as often as richer buyers, and that means, the total installed base has seen a big growth in older phones still in circulation. Mobile phones are often kept longer and they are also increasingly passed down to family and friends (especially when a teenager gets his or her first smartphone, if often is a hand-me-down) and thus the age when a phone exists the installed base has grown longer than my model. I did a massive readjustment to my model and have updated now my installed base to reflect a base of 2.6 Billion smartphones in use worldwide (this is total smartphones, including those who own more than one) which is in line with the Pew data for 2.3 Billion unique smartphone owners at the end of 2015. So 300 million of all smartphones in use are in pockets of someone who owns two smartphones. Thats obviously 13% of all smartphone owners.

Now I expect that my model was accurate (enough, to say 100 million) in year 2011 so I've adjusted my installed base number and market shares back to 2011 and am now sharing those with you. My quarterly market share blogs in the future will be built upon this number, so if you look at past blogs, there will be a jump but this is the way to adjust those numbers for those who want to have time series numbers for trend analysis.

So overall compared to my old model, I have raised my total number of global smartphone installed base as of December 31, 2015, by 7%. That has mostly gone to Android where the obvious growth has been mostly in the past 3 years as iPhone's unit sales market share has declined from its peak of 20% in 2012 to the 15% it was in 2014 and it was last year. Note that in my model I already had a very strong long-life factor for the iPhone and the iPhone installed base has for this whole decade been above the actual unit sales market share - due to the long life span of iPhones, I could not really adjust the iPhone number up by much but I did increase it by 2% vs 7% overall for the industry. (Also there is of course a less than sold impact adjustment for Windows as so many of those phones are not ever activated) Still, the iPhone total installed base is 505 million today, good for a corrected installed base market share of 19.1% (vs 20.1% using my older model). iOS fans and developers need to remember that is installed base of iPhone units specifically, ie smartphones, not other iOS devices like iPads and iPod touch media players and Apple Watches, which would of course grow the total accessable market as an OS platform similar to how Android tablets, smart watches, netbooks and other gadgets increase the total also for the Android OS market.

TOTAL INDUSTRY METRICS 2015

So now with these adjustments, we have revised numbers for the full year 2015. Total humans on the planet alive at the end of 2015 was 7.3 Billion people. There were 7.6 Billion active mobile phone accounts ie subscriptions (usually SIM cards) either post-paid or prepaid, combined. That means a top-line metric for our industry of 104% per capita mobile phone account penetration rate. Note in comparing such stats, this is not 'per household' number nor is this a 'by adult population' number. It is per-capita so counting all humans alive from babies to great great grandparents. That 7.6 Billion includes machine-to-machine subscriptions of about 400 million (5% of all active mobile phone accounts are now connecting machines).

As per the Pew survey sample of adults in 30 countries, adjusted for world population we get total unique mobile phone ownership at 5.0 Billion. That is 68% of all humans alive, and this is the 'best measure' if you want to know how far can mobile reach. Yes more than two out of every three humans alive on the planet has both a mobile phone in their pocket and its connected to an active account so the person can be reached for example by SMS text message. The unique user count, easy to remember this year, its an even 5.0 Billion people who have a mobile phone. And calculating out the multiple accounts, 34% of all mobile phone accounts in use, are second or third accounts (whether connected to a second phone or not; some save money owning one phone but swapping SIM cards into it and can easily have four SIM cards and one phone). If you consider the error in using total subs vs unique users, that is now 52%. You OVERCOUNT the actual market by 52% if you talk about total mobile subscriptions when you mean to talk about unique users.. Its time to learn those numbers and use the one that is relevant to you and your business. Sometimes you do want to reach the target on any device he or she is using, so the total subscription count is not an inherently wrong number, just that it is increasingly misleading now in this industry. Usually the unique users number is the best for measuring the actual mobile audience total size.

Some of us have more than one phone. So what is the total phone population in use? 5.6 Billion so 12% of us have two phones. For many of us that is two smartphones. For some who recently became smartphone users, it may be that the older phone is still a featurephone. And for some who just need basic connectivity (say a taxi driver) then both phones (or all 3 or 4 phones) can be very basic phones just that customers on any network can call or text that taxi driver directly.

As it comes to smartphones, yes 2.3 Billion unique smartphone owners have 2.6 Billion total smartphones in use. Thats 13% of all smartphone owners who have two smartphones. Among dumbphone owners (2.7 Billion people with 3.0 Billion phones) the number who have two phones is of course less as a percentage, its 11%. That will keep coming down rather fast as most who can afford two phones will be migrating to smartphones.

So that is what our world looks like today. Feel free to share these numbers with anyone you want and put into infographics and quote in your presentations and stats. Please refer to the upcoming 2016 edition of the TomiAhonen Almanac as the source if you need a formal source or you can also refer to this blog of course. Meanwhile for those who need over 100 such stats for mobile industry, the best stats source every year is the Almanac, and my 2015 edition came out late last year. So the freshest mobile stats on everything you ever wanted is all here, in one volume: TomiAhonen Almanac 2015.

April 15, 2016

I love those Pew numbers we got in February. I did my preliminary analysis of them back in February when the numbers came out, to give a global view, based on that sample. But I wanted to come back with more analysis and cross-tabulating with the numbers I have in the TomiAhonen Almanac 2015 and the TomiAhonen Phone Book 2014 (both came out last year 2015) and also using the forecasts from the TomiAhonen Mobile Forecast to 2018 (which also came out last year).

So first, what was Pew measuring. They measured mobile phone ownership and smartphone ownership, by national surveys, globally in 30 countries and for us, very relevantly, mostly focusing on Emerging World countries rather than say Western Europe which is often measured. It was not a total global survey but just about the next best thing. We can easily use baskets of countries to get regional numbers as their averages. It also was only a survey of adults, so especially in the more affluent regions, youth ownership would skew those numbers somewhat (in Finland mobile phone ownership of 7 year olds has reached past 90% but even most other rich nations are not quite that far yet in mobile ownership by age). In practise most marketing and sales is restricted to adults and if we examine the world with say a 15 year age threshold, then we have the 'addressable market' for most marketing activities well defined for most who read this blog, and their employers. Worldwide half of the planet's population is under the age of 30, roughly speaking, but in Africa half of the population is under the age of 21 (40% under age 15).

But the big key is UNIQUES. Our industry has passed the 7.6 Billion mobile subscription penetration rate (including non-human connections which are already in the several hundreds of millions). So if we measure total subs, we get 104% mobile phone subsciption penetration rate per capita (of any age, note, not just adults). That is, obviously, because part of the subs are machines (telematics measurements machines for example your electricity or water meter is often now connected via cellular network) and more relevantly, many of us have two or more subscriptions, often as pre-paid accounts via SIM cards to rival networks. So the total subscriber count is increasingly misleading. The world does not have a mobile phone for everyone, obviously. A two-year-old has no use for a mobile phone. And with that, the Pew survey is far more accurate to measure uniques, than the normal metrics we get from industry regulators etc, which measure active accounts by the industry - where we often have multiple accounts, thus distorting that measure. The best measure for using mobile as a media - the measure of hte audience - would be unique users, and THAT number is very hard to get. About the only valid way to get it (today) is via such surveys as Pew, and they are of course expensive to conduct globally.

With Pew's survey we found using my company analysis that the world has 5.0 Billion unique mobile phone owners (owning one or more mobile phones, which can be smart or dumb phones). Out of the 5.0B, the number of unique smartphone owners was 2.3 Billion last year (46%) and as we've measured out of the sales numbers the total installed base of all smartphones at 2.5 Billion so 200 million of the total smartphones in use worldwide are by those of us who have 2 phones in their pockets (or 9% of all smartphone unique owners have 2 smartphones). I published this breakdown of the world mobile phone unique ownership and smartphone vs dumbphone vs no-phone owners in February, based on Pew numbers:

That was numbers for end of 2015. But we do have rather solid growth rates for the industry, we can now also take a short-term projection to the end of this year, to find how that unique audience grows this year. So I did a lot of math on a longer flight and am now ready to publish my follow-up on those numbers. Lets first take year 2016 and see what those numbers look like for the end of this year. I am assigning my company growth rates regionally to each variable and of course then testing against the total global numbers. I get a picture for December 31, 2016 to look like this:

MOBILE UNIQUE OWNERSHIP PER CAPITA (ANY AGE) REGIONALLY AT END OF 2016 (PROJECTION)

So this year 2016 becomes the year when the world passes the half-way point in unique users, where half of all who actually own a mobile phone, will own at least one smartphone. But note, still nearly one third (30%) of the planet will not have a mobile phone. Two thirds of those are of course kids under the age of 15. The world will be at 5.2 Billion unique mobile phone owners (70% of the planet's population) and smartphones will have a reach to unique owners of 2.6 Billion (35% of planet's population alive)

Now what many of my readers want to know, is how many of those smartphones are Androids or iPhones (and some astute readers would want to know, how much bigger is the reach of the mobile web, as not all dumbphones have browsers but many do). Well, we can do that !! So lets do the above numbers but spltting out - roughly speaking - the iOS and Android phones out of the smartphones (Blackberry, Symbian, Windows are dead and Tizen is nowhere to be measured yet) And I've now calculated back the age, so we do above age 15 audience only, as we don't really care how many under 15 year-olds might have mobile phones, this is now 'audience reach' on a target that can be reasonably marketed to:

MOBILE AUDIENCE REACH BY TECH BY UNIQUES ABOVE AGE 15 REGIONALLY AT END OF 2016 (PROJECTION)

So seven out of eight adults alive at the end of this year will have at least one mobile phone and active subscription (mostly obviously a prepaid account). 36% of the planet can be reached with Android, 22% will have a featurephone that does the mobile internet, only 9% will be reachable via iOS and 22% will have such a basic phone that only SMS can reach them. 12% of adults won't have a mobile connection yet. Even in Europe and North America, about one in twelve adults will be so unconnected, they somehow survive without even one mobile phone... Now on SMS and mobile web, all iPhones and Androids ALSO can do SMS and mobile web. So we should do another table of the reach by service or tech method, rather than type of phone. That gets interesting..

MOBILE UNIQUE AUDIENCE REACH BY METHOD ABOVE AGE 15 REGIONALLY AT END OF 2016 (PROJECTION)

Note for context, SMS Text Messaging has 5.8 Billion active users (more than 5.0B unique users last year, so it means obviously that many active users are using SMS on more than one subscription or device). Of unique users, roughly 4.8 Billion (88%) are using SMS. 2.7 Billion of the uniques are using MMS, 2.8 Billion use the mobile internet but only 2.0 Billion download any kind of apps. And further for contrast, Facebook has 1.2 Billion mobile users and Whatsapp has 1.0 Billion. So obviously once again, mobile first is and will be SMS, even if we measure it by unique users and to the end of this year. Totally crushes all other rivals and obviously also, mobile internet reaches far more pockets than any apps on any platform.

Thats what I dug up for us. For those who need to know more detail - over 100 tables and charts - about the mobile industry, my TomiAhonen Almanac 2015 just came out a few months ago with all the latest numbers. And if you want to see the future to 2018, the TomiAhonen Mobile Forecast is here.

April 12, 2016

Gugliermo Marconi is credited with inventing the radio and he received a patent for the first practical radio transmission in 1897, and he launched the first commercial radio based communication company, the Wireless Telegraph Trading Signal Company in 1897 (later to be known as Marconi Company Ltd which was eventually merged into BAE Systems and that in turn sold to Ericsson). And yes before the nerds complain too loudly, Marconi built on previous work and there were many other important inventions in this space of many greats like Faraday and Tesla and Popov. But Marconi got the patent and set up the first commercial company to make it function as a business. It is fair to say Marconi is the father of radio. So ‘our industry’ in ‘mobile’ cannot work without radios of some kind, regardless of your definition - cellular or WiFi or near field, Bluetooth, or even FM radio that is often inbuilt into smartphones as an extra - all of those trace their roots to Marconi. So we can thank Gugliermo for laying the foundation for our industry even as the ‘mobile’ part of it took many twists and turns merging in and out of the telephone industry (itself older than radio) and the internet to get where we are today. Signore Marconi, grazie mille!

Now when you and I think of ‘radio’ we think of the thing in the car, the device in our kitchen-clock, the FM receiver in our home stereo set, or maybe the feature on our smartphone. Radio. You know, lots of music, then lots of ads, or tons of outrageous talk with traffic reports. Radio. So almost all ‘normal’ people will think of ‘radio’ as that same thing, a broadcast technology that gives us music, news, sports, weather reports and traffic congestion info, that we listen in to. Now, the radio ENGINEERS will also remind us that radio waves ie the same radio transmission technology gives us also a far bigger industry that is much more able to consume our time and interest - television. In rough terms radio worldwide is about a 100 Billion dollar industry in size but TV is worth about 5 times that, roughly 500 Billion dollars in size. Television’s first experimental broadcasts were starting just a few years around when Marconi himself died (1937). A MASSIVELY bigger industry born out of his invention, radio communications, but one that flowered in the next 80 years after his death and 40 years after the radio communication technology was patented and this industry born.

There is so much more to radio obviously than radio as the mass media we listen to, or its colorful cousin, television. What about measuring with radio? Radar (also invented around the time of Marconi’s death just before World War 2) allows us to measure far and with freakish accuracy incredible things like the speed of the round of a cannon firing or to notice that Hi Tomi is wobbling and not saying Hi anymore from space (Hitomi is a Japanese satellite that just lost its way a few weeks into its journey into orbit). Even more astonishing are radio telescopes. So in the area of measurement we can use radio. So its a very versatile and still fast evolving technological frontier. Here in mobile we went from 1G to 2G digital to 3G high speed to 4G mobile broadband and by the Japanese Olympics the father of the cellular industry - NTT DoCoMo of Japan - will be demonstrating 5G for us. (NTT launched cellular ie mobile telecoms four years before another ‘father’ Dr Martin Cooper provided his contribution to the cellular ie mobile industry - the first personally portable mobile phone. Previous mobile phones were either briefcase-phones or mostly, carphones. But yeah, the mobile industry was not born in Chicago in 1983 with Dr Cooper’s phone, it was born four years prior to that, with the first 1G cellular/mobile telecoms network going commercially live in Tokyo Japan).

ON THE RADIO

Its a long meandering intro to my point. Marconi was asked of his invention, whether he thought it could be used to transmit content to homes, ie what we think of as ‘radio’. To deliver our news or music or entertainment. He said no, he did not believe there was any practical commercial application for his radio to be used for broadcasting uses like that.

Marconi the inventor of radio, didn’t believe in ‘radio’ as we now know it. Wow, isn’t that amazing. So what in the world was Marconi then doing with his radio. It wasn’t TV or radar at that time. No, his company - look at the name - was a wireless telegraph and signaling company. In the late 1800s telegraphs were wiring the world for the first time for instant worldwide communication (the first trans-Atlantic cable was laid only in 1866, on that magnificent giant ship Great Eastern, the last of Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s masterpieces in engineering). The telegraph changed the world incredibly. So consider John Tawall, he murdered his wife in 1845 Slough (a town in England), boarded a train and escaped to try to vanish in the vast city of London. But his wife’s murder was discovered and before the train arrived in London, a telegraph was sent to to Scotland Yard who came to Paddington station and apprehended the murderer. Suddenly information could move faster than humans. Before the telegraph all you could have done is sent an express letter - on the next train...

Marconi was a man of the 1800s and the big telecoms disruptor of that world was, the telegraph. Yes, some rich people were also installing those fire-alarm gadgets - telephones - into the servants quarters of their houses - where servants would take some messages and deliver for their masters but at this time, the big thing - the internet of its time if you will - was the telegraph. And that is where Marconi brought a great leap. What about ships at sea?

You can’t pull a wire with the ship as it sails across the ocean. But ships of that time were quite prone to all sorts of disasters from storms to exploding early coal burning engines to then be burning or eaten up by sharks or drowning. Nasty way to die. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if a ship in distress could ‘telegraph’ to the shore to ask for help - say send an SOS - three short beeps followed by three long beeps then again three short beeps. (SOS has a literal meaning, its short for ‘Save Our Souls’ which is not the souls of the shipping crew, it means the ‘Souls On Board’ ie the SOBs, which was shipping language for their human cargo. Come save our passengers. SOS. SOS).

That was Marconi’s killer idea. All ships should buy his new gadget so they could communicate to the shore if they got into trouble. And then... yes I sailed over the Atlantic when I first visited the USA in 1966 on a giant Holland America Line ocean liner the SS Rotterdam (six nights, seven days to cross the Atlantic, woke up to see the Statue of Liberty out of our porthole, I was 6 years old at the time). So yes, at that time there was no telephone service from ship-to-shore but there were telegraphs, and we did receive a telegraph while onboard. I learned then that there was a dedicated telegraph operator in the radio room of the giant ocean liner just in case some important VIP customers had to receive some important urgent message so vital it could not wait until the ship reached its destinations in some days. I thought it was amazing (our telegraph related to our hotel lodgings in New York).

Almost instantly the military took to this idea, obviously very useful to have ship-to-ship communication ability that goes beyond the visible horizon (where flags with Semaphore code and at night Aldis Lamps with Morse code could be used to send messages but only to visible range, not beyond). But that is how Marconi saw it. Radio’s ‘killer app’ was ship-to-shore communiciations and once that was set up, then it also could be used in ship-to-ship and later, other difficult and long-range communications where cables had not yet been pulled. Eventually even those newly-fangled aeroplanes that the Wright Brothers put up in air, were wired for radio comms by around the First World War. And most of the early radio communication was by beeps, the telegraph and using Morse Code (back in boy scouts in the 1970s I still learned and memorized the communication methods of Morse code and also of the Semaphore flag alphabet, gosh those are utterly lost to me now). Now, compared to the ‘radio’ broadcasting industry by size, the telegraph communications industry never became to that size of 100 Billion dollars. I don’t know its peak size in terms of value, but I’d guess it was never more than one tenth of that. So if we say the total radio industry - combining Marconi’s original radio telegraph wireless signaling, and the soon evolved and soon larger radio broadcasting side, combined, we’re at about 110 Billion dollars in annual revenues, tops. Still, that is huge, so compared to say Hollywood which is one quarter of that (all global cinema box office revenues actually, not just American movies). I like to use Marconi’s vision (and the kind of ‘lack of it’) often in my workshops about mobile and our horizons. Don’t let veterans of our industry say something is impossible, seek the opportunities beyond the obvious. Often the largest opportunity of a given technological advance comes later in the that industry’s growth stage and often the inventors and pioneers of a given industry didn’t see its full potential.

SO THEN, MATTI MAKKONEN

So I want to move to another father of a wireless telecoms industry, Matti Makkonen. I wasn’t even born when Marconi died, but Matti, I met him many times, and he became my mentor when I was at Nokia (he was the last person who mentored me on my career and I was also his last mentoree, funny coincidence). I later invited Matti to become the godfather to my young Consulting Department at Nokia. If Matti’s name is not as familiar to you as Marconi, it eventually probably will become so. He is the father of the mobile data industry. Matti Makkonen received the Economist Innovation Award in Communication and Telecommunications in 2008 for his work in inventing the SMS text message. Ah, THAT guy, yeah. Now I vaguely remember, eh... This man:

Matti Makkonen

Matti died last year, he had semi-retired and had some advisory positions still but most of his career he spent with the Finnish telecoms incumbent Telecom Finland aka Sonera (now part of Swedish giant TeliaSonera) where his last job was heading the mobile internet arm of the company. He then went to work for Nokia as a Vice President and he later would become the CEO of Finnet another Finnish telecoms company. Now, Matti was the first to remind everybody that SMS Text Messaging was an international telecoms standard written into the GSM specification and the result of a lot of collaborative work, but that was also his humble way to deflect from the fame. He did invent SMS text messaging. Others also worked on it to create what we now have but Matti is the genuine father of our industry, mobile, in terms of an industry around mobile data. SMS text messaging was the first non-voice service launched on mobile/cellular services and also became the first media delivery channel on mobile and a payment method and advertising channel too. The first (experimental) SMS message was sent in 1992 from a computer on the Vodafone network in Britain. The first commercial SMS text message the way we understand it today, as a person-to-person text, sent from a mobile phone to a mobile phone was Nokia GSM phones on the Radiolinja network in Finland (part of Finnet group) in 1994 (I myself sent my first SMS text message also on a Nokia phone also on Radiolinja’s network, in 1995, so my texting addiction is already 21 years of age, gosh).

Matti Makkonen gave many lectures seminars and keynotes to the young mobile industry later in his life. One of the most lasting, influential presentations by anyone that I have seen, was the private briefing he gave to my Consultants at Nokia in year 2000 (I can’t believe it is 16 years ago, his teachings are so relevant still today). I come back to Matti’s thoughts time and again, about things like using the mobile phone single-handedly, or how we are moving from services to the ears (voice calls), to services to the eyes (mobile data on the screen of the phone) and how being small doesn’t mean mobile is somehow the weaker sister of the computing world. These are all themes that I’ve touched upon on this blog over the past 11 years and in my books in the past 15 years. But today I want to return to another of Matti Makkonen’s wild visions from year 2000, about the new services in mobile data. Matti had seen the birth of SMS, and how much if flowered by that time in six years to add news alerts and games and jokes and payments and advertising.

And let me pause here, for a moment, to give us scale. SMS Text Messaging is used by 5.8 Billion people worldwide (source TomiAhonen Almanac 2015) - it is the most used technology, the most used communication method, and the most used media on the planet. Yes, more people use SMS text messaging than use the voice calls on their phones so SMS is bigger even than voice on our phones today, by active users. The largest telecoms industry ever - if measured by reach of humans but obviously not by its revenues. Which brings me back to Marconi - Makkonen DID conceive of new vast opportunities BEYOND just messaging on mobile phones both on SMS, and beyond SMS. But how big IS that messaging purely as conceived by Matti himself, not the fancy MMS and OTT and other mobile messaging evolutions beyond just SMS. SMS text messaging alone is worth 139 Billion dollars annually today (says the TomiAhonen Almanac 2015). While that is enormous obviously it isn't quite in the scale of say television (yet) but note - SMS was the fastest industry in human history to go from zero dollars to 100 Billion dollars in annual value. Fastest industry in history to get to 100 Billion. (Oh, and lets not talk about the profits. At one point more than 95% of the TOTAL SMS texting industry was pure PROFIT about a decade ago...)

Now back to how Gugliermo Marconi must be smiling up there in the telegraph room of Heaven. It is wireless messaging communication by signaling, which is SMS. They wrote a separate SIGNALING channel to the GSM standard to allow for Matti Makkonen’s invention to work on the voice based digital telecoms cellular network of that time. So Marconi’s idea took literally a century to cover the whole planet geographically and another decade or so to reach essentially every pocket of every human who is old enough (and literate) to read and write. And in money, if the original wireless telegraph industry never topped 10 Billion dollars in value, and its richer younger sister the ‘broadcast radio’ grew to be worth 100 Billion, now that son of the wireless telegraph - SMS text messaging - is worth both of those, combined, and then some. Yes SMS text messaging alone (ignoring all other mobile messaging from MMS to OTT to email) is worth 139 Billion dollars and far larger than the total original industry created by Marconi’s invention, of wireless telegraph signaling.

NEW MOBILE DATA SERVICES AS IMAGINED

In year 2000 there was no iPhone. If you wanted the internet in your pocket you could buy the Nokia Communicator but it was a brick of a phone and incredibly massively outrageously expensive for a mobile phone at the time. It was like buying a Rolls Royce for a car. Only the really rich and the really powerful had Communicators (and only a few lucky ones over at Nokia management including... ahem... someone you know). There was no Twitter, there was no YouTube, there was no Facebook - even MySpace had not launched by 2000. If you wanted a mobile internet, and didn’t live in Japan, you were out of luck because even WAP had not launched yet. 3G had not launched. GRPS (2.5G) had not launched yet. The highest speed mobile data you could do in year 2000 was HSCSD (Not to be confused with HSDPA now in use) and that had only been around a few months. Yes, this is moving from 2G towards 3G but it was essentially 2.1G if you accept WAP (of WAP is crap) as 2.2G.

In year 2000 you could go visit Japan and see the astonishing iMode on NTT DoCoMo’s service - in very many ways the prototype of the modern iPhone-idolizing apps-prioritizing mobile data world. iMode had only been around for a year but if you like your app stores as a developer where Apple or Google pay you 70 cents out of every dollar that your client is charged - thank Japan for the idea. Except on iMode it was 91 cents returned and only 9 cents out of every dollar kept by NTT DoCoMo. If you like 3G speeds, or having a WiFi option on your smartphone or QR Codes or now the NFC payments on your iPhone - all those were invented by NTT DoCoMo in Japan. If something related to mobile and was not invented in Finland around SMS, then almost everything else came from Japan. If not at NTT DoCoMo then it would be its two rivals such as GPS location-based services by KDDI, or cameraphones by J-Phone (now Softbank) or real music downloads (KDDI) or picture messaging (J-Phone) etc etc etc.

But most of that was still in the future in year 2000. Even in year 2000 there was no cameraphone, no GPS phone, no musicphone even invented, far less QR codes or NFC payments and mobile wallets. Mobile phone screens in year 2000 were still in monochrome (black-and-white) and usually only displayed about 5 lines of text, some premium phones still got by showing only one line of text at a time that you had to scroll. Imagine doing that on a Twitterflood rant by Donald Trump (or Tomi Ahonen) today haha.

That is your context for year 2000, when phones had no cameras, no browsers, no color screens, no media players, no GPS and no touch screens. And the highest speed was something so obscure we can’t even now remember what HSCSD letters stood for and when WAP was a promise of something amazing in coming years, when the ‘almost’ internet was going to reach our pockets. What kind of vision could the father of the mobile data industry have for that vast expanse of opportunity? My consulting team at Nokia was truly privileged to get that private session with Matti Makkonen who among so many other remarkable pearls, gave what to my senior consultants and definitely to me, was the most valuable part. A vision into the future of our services in mobile data. He taught us four words: Advertainment, Infotainment, Edutainment and Community. It is literally true, that I have thought about those four of Matti Makkonen’s teachings as a group at least once every single month since I heard it. This blog (not this article, I mean this blog the Communities Dominate blog that has had 6 million lifetime visitors and has received 50,000 comments in its 11 years) is the direct descendant of that teaching, but I am getting ahead of ourselves. Lets go to the four.

Matti was not arguing these are the only four areas where mobile data will exist. He also did not say they would all be big. But in year 2000, apart from what already existed in mobile data at that time - news, games, music (while yes, very very rudimenatry as ringtones) advertising, payments, person-to-person messaging etc - Makkonen foresaw four NEW areas to emerge. One around a new type of consuming information, one as a new way to receive an education, one around a new media to deliver advertising and one as a new way to communicate. He felt very passionately that mobile needed to utilize its unique abilities and to deliver via content and services that capitalized on those unique abilities - starting with being able to operate it on a single hand. An internet service on a PC or laptop never had that need. Single-handed operation. But on early mobile services it was a massive insight and an early key between those who failed and those who made it. As regular readers of this blog know, one of my career-long passions was seeking the extent of unique advantages of mobile of which I have so far chronicled nine. Note that by my first books more than a decade ago, I had only discovered four.

INFOTAINMENT

In that listing of four, three have the ending ‘tainment’ from entertainment. Matti believed strongly that adding an entertaining aspect to delivering information or education or even advertising would enhance that service and on mobile - due to our short attention span, often being in a situation of multi-tasking and having so many alternate calls for our attention - it is even more important. So lets take infotainment. The merger of information with entertainment. I am in the information-peddling business myself as a consultant and author. Those who have seen me speak know that I at least TRY to make it also entertaining, to throw in some jokes and little gimmicks and some other tricks of the speaking trade, to try to add that entertainment angle to my message. If the audience is enjoying itself (to the degree you can at a technology conference or internal company workshop with that weird guy in the hat) it is more able to absorb what I am trying to teach. I took to heart the moment I heard the quote by the late, great talk-show master, Johnny Carson, people will pay more to be entertained, than to be informed. It was joked at the time, that young people had stopped listening to the nightly news just preceeding Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show, but tuned into listen to his monologue of jokes, to learn the news that way, instead. And the Daily Show in its peak years with Jon Stewart, took that blending of news and entertainment into a total new stratosphere, and it was measured to be true, that for young people they learned the news more from Stewart than from any other more formal news source.

I was onboard with Johnny Carson’s quotation well before I met Matti Makkonen for the first time and I don’t know if Matti ever saw or heard Carson or ever knew of that quotation, but when Matti talked suddenly of ‘infotainment’ it went straight into my hypothalamus and simply confirmed by a new word to me at that time, what I knew instinctively to be true, and how I had been living for years already at that time, as Nokia’s chief Consultant and part of its heavy rotation ‘Talking Heads’ team at HQ who were authorized to speak to the media. So ‘infotainment’ is my racket, eh? That is what I apparently was born to do. To try to make the boring nerdy subject matter of wireless telecoms sound interesting and exciting and even funny.. gosh, and I was actually succeeding in that mission too.

Now on mobile industry giants, did you notice what Telenor has been doing recently? They are now launching all across their Asian footprint a campaign they call 'More Than' in which they want to help various Asians get better info about education, healthcare, agriculture, government etc. This is part of that kind of thinking what Matti taught us all those years ago. A telecoms operator wanting to help with agriculture info? Or health or education. Thats pretty smart. Now, did the Telenor management ever actually listen to Matti Makkonen directly talk about his thinking, who knows? Scandinavian telcos did a lot of cooperation and later in his Nokia years he very well could have visited with Telenor, one of Nokia's best clients. But I honestly don't know. What I DO know is that my consultants DID meet with Telenor very frequently - Telenor openly thanked Nokia's Business Consulting department for helping them with their 3G strategy development in October of 2001. I am certain Matti's ideas got transferred in ample degree to the strategy team of Telenor then, 15-16 years ago. And probably the names are long forgotten but the ideas have percolated and today a Scandinavian mobile telecoms operator/carrier is working in areas to help bring info in valuable areas to customers in distant lands. This is an amazing industry and I am so proud to have been part of it. Now, those who are succeeding in mobile out of the information industry tend to be those who get the ‘tainment’ part of it - like the Pew Survey last year revealed, for example the Huffington Post is one of the early web news services to see more of its viewers coming from mobile than PC. Its not that HuffPo doesn’t do ‘real news’ but their service makes an effort to offer a lot of that entertainment part thrown in with it. Probably the least controversial of Matti Makkonen’s ideas from back then would have been Infotainment and we can just accept, very wise and far-sighted view, suuret kiitokset, Matti Makkonen.

EDUTAINMENT

The more challenging part and a close sibling to infotainment is edutaiment. Really? Do teachers now have to compete with late night comedians? But we all know its true, the best educators tend to be good also as entertainers. My fave professor from college days, then only the Chair of the Marketing Department at Clarion University who later became the University’s President, was Dr Joe Grunenwald. Obviously a marketing professor. He would kid while he was still only a professor, in class, that he wanted all professors to be paid by student enrolled, the more you attracted students the higher your salary (he didn’t really mean it and we discussed this in class also why this would dramatically distort the very integrity of the education system) but he said, he was so popular he’d just list the sports stadium as his classroom and fill it... thats the confidence of a great, entertaining speaker. A side-splittingly funny teacher (my fave high school teacher, Sr Renee Brinker at the English School in Helsinki - was the funniest teacher I had had up to Grunenwald). He made you laugh ever single class and thus, you really didn’t want to miss even one of his lectures. Plus - seasoned comedians like that - he wouldn’t bore you eternally with the same jokes, it seemed truly to be fresh every single time.

Is it fair, no. Is it the only requirement for a teacher, to have to be funny, obviously not. Can you have a great teacher who is utterly not funny at all, of course you can. Teaching is a calling profession and highly noble, and I don’t want to belittle it saying it should be crass entertainment only - BUT on MOBILE - we don’t have the time, we are always overloaded with alternate stimuli - what is on my Twitter right now - on mobile.. if you want to educate, try to make it ENTERTAINING, that will make it FAR more likely to succeed. Like say...

Angry Birds. Yes yes, we’re bored silly by now of the Mighty Eagle Peter Vesterbacka’s iconic red hoodie seen at every envy-inducing public event where Rovio keeps getting invited, but come on. Three. Yes three not two. Three is a rare number in this scale. If we say BILLIONS. Not many companies can say in their lifetime they reached 3 Billion customers. Angry Birds has passed now the 3 Billion cumulative download threshold. Facebook only has 1.5 Billion users. Three. Apple will pass the 1 Billion cumulative iPhone shipment number this summer. Three. Samsung has only shipped 1.3 Billion smartphones in its lifetime. Three. Angry Birds by Rovio has passed 3 Billion downloads in only six years. It is by a wide margin the most played downloaded videogame in human history. It is pure entertainment obviously but did you see what Rovio, its parent did? They used the Angry Bird popularity to set up an education unit for young kids of pre-school age (up to age 6) called Fun Learning. That has now been spun as its own company. That is edutainment. You combine education with entertainment, to help it succeed in the fiercely competitive world of mobile. Not every teacher has to be entertaining (though it helps) and not every educational service or system needs to be fun - but boy does that help. It was what I told the first Mobile Learning conference in my keynote in 2010, I implored the young m-learning industry to embrace ‘magical’ services. To be not just educational but entertaining too.

There was no edutainenment in year 2000 when Matti Makkonen talked to my consultants and nobody would conceive of using a mobile phone as an educational instrument. But here we are a decade and a half later. New Zealand already has all teachers using mobile phones in some way in their teaching, the specific use is with the teachers but they’ve gone from banning phones to embracing them in education; Finland has moved to the point now where this year 2016 will be the first where parts of the national matriculation exams (at high school graduation level before entrance to universities - for American readers think SAT score tests, for British readers think GCSE exams or closer probably the A Level exams) are done WITH mobile phones IN THE TEST ROOM. You still thinking we should BAN the students from using their personal mobile phones (smartphones) when the world is speeding towards an information age? How moronic is that? You HAVE to embrace the mobile revolution also in education.

In Finland it is a migration process where a few schools and subjects start this year and in a few more years all students in all schools and all subjects will take their national matriculation exams - by mobile. Yes. The world’s best national education system compared to any other country, in all tests year in and year out - is doing THIS. Mobile is OF COURSE a learning instrument. But knowing that, if you can make learning FUN, then it becomes easier to learn, easier to teach. Edutainment. Thanks Matti Makkonen.

ADVERTAINMENT

The wild part where Matti took us on that fateful day at my Consultancy department, was his view of advertising evolving. Again, this is five YEARS before the book that spawned this blog, Communities Dominate Brands. Matti thought that advertising should evolve past being interruptive and hated, to become entertaining and beloved. Wow, what a concept for that time. And that successful mobile advertising on mobile would bring about a total new category he called advertainment. Not that all ads on mobile would become thus, but that this was a dramatic new growth opportunity of a whole new area of advertising, essentially unique to or at least born out of the challenges and limitations of mobile.

I’ve spoken to the global advertising industry on all six inhabited continents, and literally at least once every year since chairing the world’s first mobile advertising conference sixteen years ago. And obviously I am not an ad industry guy, I’m a telecoms geek. And I ALWAYS ask my ad audiences to help innovate in the ad industry for advertising to be entertaining, to be magical, to go beyond the interruption. Yes, its mantra today like how I now preach: Don’t spam don’t spy; ask permission and satisfy. How can you have satisfying advertising? One way is, if it is entertaining. Like say advergames, a whole subcategory of advertising which was born through mobile. The world's first advergames were invented in India, on mobile of course. Very smart by Matti, a non-ad guy, talking to us in year 2000 to foresee this, radical change to the advertising industry.

One sign that the ad industry is on its way to Matti’s vision is if we find commercially and sustainable advertising models which have the consumers requesting for more ads. That sounds like a hobby for the mentally deranged. Yet, as I’ve repeatedly proven in my mobile advertising workshops, even ad industry professionals didn’t notice, that Amazon has invented an ad model that has us requesting more ads and not even thinking of the ads as ‘advertising’. I am of course talking about Amazon’s recommendation engine - when you look at the page for my book Mobile as 7th of the Mass Media, you see of course other books recommended by Amazon. They are based on others who bought my book (or looked at its page), so likely if you liked my book, you’ll also like those others. Now, at the end of the five books they recommend today, is a button to offer you more recommendations. If you clicked on that link, you actually requested Amazon to show you more advertising!!! Those little pictures of book covers - they are each an ad, and if you requested to see more recommendations, you, my dear reader, have also been duped by Amazon to request more ads - and spend time watching MORE ads rather than reading a book or say, this blog, haha... Yes, I know, I know. Can you imagine how foolish the advertising industry audiences have felt when I asked them about that haha...

Its possible to create ads so good we want more of them. Maybe that they have more information, like in Amazon’s case. Maybe its because the advertising brand has gamified the ads and have conditioned us to wait to see more - to win awards or loyalty points like say Coca Cola did in South Korea or McDonald’s did in Denmark - with mobile campaigns. People were sitting in front of the TV during ad breaks - hoping to see an ad by McDonalds so they’d get to redeem a coupon. WAITING for a particular ad... Yet another variant is what I wrote about a few months ago, iadbox out of Spain now spreading fast around the world from Britain to Argentina. They are delivering targeted mobile ads where the recepient is also rewarded, and yes, again, many users now look forward to more ads. This will change the world totally.

Advertising is evolving fast and into something radically different from the past. Some in the ad industry love the challenges and opportunities of the change. Others desperately cling to the past and lament the changes. In Communities Dominate Brands, my fourth book eleven years ago, that topic was a key theme. Since then I returned to the mobile side of the ad industry changes in Pearls Vol 1: Mobile Advertising, as an overview of the various individual steps that the ad industry had taken on its journey to discover the power of mobile. Was it all ‘tainment’ where the mobile ad industry went? No. But it evolved totally beyond what was the full ad industry of year 2000. And today mobile is the fastest-growing part of global ad industry and all major ad agencies sing the ‘mobile first’ song and some even talk of occasional ‘mobile only’ strategies and campaigns. But when they get stuck with the silly old location-based ideas or smartphone apps, and need some inspiration of where the magic was, and is, and will be - they call up the old consultant from Hong Kong who once worked at Nokia... I love talking with the ad industry professionals because its a young person’s industry like mobile, and they are able to view the world with an attitude of exploring the opportunities through its creative potential, rather than what many older telecoms engineers like to look at hopeless log-jammed understaffed underfunded over-promised project nightmares in how they see the near future of their side of this industry.

So in year 2000 as I listened to Matti Makkonen talk to my department, on the Infotainment, I was fully onboard. On Edutainment, I saw it as also a strong prospect with perhaps a longer time horizon. On Advertainment, while I caught Matti’s enthusiasm and shared in a prospect, of the possibility of an industry to change so radically, I wasn’t as sure. I gave Advertainment more room for doubt in my mind, but still embraced it as a possible future scenario, which I soon bought fully into, and that could be sensed well already in my third book 3G Marketing. But it was that fourth part which to me took the longest to take hold. Community. What was that all about?

COMMUNITY AS IN DOMINATE

So Infotainment, Edutainment, Advertainment and Community. I remember Matti making the point when he showed the four on his slide, that he didn’t like the verbal disharmony where that last, fourth word didn’t rhyme with the previous three, but it was because there was no established word for that type of service. What was his Community? What we now know as Social Media. Facebook, Twitter etc. Oh, duh, yeah, Communities Dominate Brands, eh? Obvious.

But not obvious when Matti said it. There was no Instagram or Snapchat. There was no Twitter, no YouTube and no Facebook. Even Facebook’s predecessor, the largest social media service ever on the plant, up to that point, MySpace - had not LAUNCHED yet. Nobody blogged (outside of South Korea). A social media experience was a chat room (and yes, I had been there, done that too. As far back as 1994 I was moderating a chat room watching live TV as the New York Rangers played the Vancouver Canucks for the Stanley Cup, we were chatting live with fans of both teams across North America about the ongoing game, 22 years ago).

In year 2000 there was nobody who said social media (for whatever synonym you can find, chatroom, dating services, social software, community services) would become big - in MOBILE. Remember in year 2000 most ‘tech experts’ outside of Scandinavia thought SMS texting was a brief youth fad about to die haha.

So first, out of Matti Makkonen’s frequent tech audiences, I was probably among the few who got his ‘point’ instantly - I had literally been running chatrooms and used online dating services and played multiplayer online games and used various other early social media already. And I had been incredibly addicted to some of them, I knew all that. What I felt a VERY strong RESISTANCE to, from Matti’s message was, that this would become commonplace sometime in my lifetime. For me, in my mind, the parallel was to videogaming. I had been incredibly addicted to early and up to mid 1990s videogaming (up to Doom and Quake which just introduced multiplayer games at modest player numbers). I then stopped cold-turkey when I noticed it was an addiction and it took me away from real life. But as the proverbial gaming geek, it was a lonely hobby (especially at that time) with no time for romance and no sensible girls at that time would bother to hang out with some totally weirdly addicted gaming nerd.

Anyway, I saw in my own geeky-nerdy-dweeb behavior on videogaming the same patterns as with the early social media. And I thought, yes, I can most definitely see a future where people LIKE ME become addicted to mobile community services (ie social networking) but I did not see OTHER normal people ever wanting to do that. Not my uncle or aunt, not my sister (but yes, my brother). I could not imagine in year 2000, something like Facebook reaching 1.5 Billion users worldwide just 15 years later. That change in my belief would not come until I saw MySpace, and eventually of course resulted in the book Communities Dominate Brands which was, as you all know obviously, eleven years ago the world's first business book for this industry we now know as Social Media. At the time of that book, even the term 'social media' was not yet the accepted terminology (which is not mentioned once in the book even though it talks about many of our famous social media services of today from Linked In to YouTube). And as I became convinced, I then also counted the numbers and revenues and that led me to quickly move to stage two, the purely mobile angle to social networking was then further shown in Pearls Vol 2: Mobile Social Networking.

This part of my brain fighting against Matti Makkonen’s teachings was also a funny bit about how my own growth into ‘mobile social networking’ happened. In the years 2000 and 2001, we, my department, were often tasked with various writing and speaking projects. Sometimes for us, sometimes for our superiors for the Nokia marketing messages. I would instinctively always remember to add advertising and news/information and education into those stories that would invariably include SMS and mobile payments/banking and location and navigation telematics etc. But I would tend to just forget to add COMMUNITY. So my boss, Ilkka Pukkila - the smartest boss I ever worked for (with apologies to all my other past bosses) - would then just mention, in seeing whatever drafts came in - wouldn’t you want to add ‘community’ to this.. He too was a big fan of Matti Makkonen of course and had seen some of Makkonen’s presentations so he knew that story. I would feel dumb and of course add community to whatever it was we were working on. Note, this happened at least four times in less than two years. My mind just had some kind of block on social media. Wasn’t ready to yet accept it as an obvious part of this industry’s future. Luckily Ilkka was fully onboard.

Ilkka probably doesn’t know it, but one of the ways I used to read various draft documents coming from my department was with my mind set on ‘what would Ilkka say’ haha, and that was when I started to insert more Community into various Nokia Consulting Department communications (and my own presentations). That very thought - what would Ilkka say - was WHY there are those two pages of Community related thinking in my first book, Services For UMTS haha. And that book had a chapter on location-based services. By my second book, m-Profits, the proportions were reversed where community services had a chapter and Location-based was down to two pages; and by my fourth book, a whole book went just into discussing how Communities Dominate Brands.

Sometimes I am a bit daft and slow, but I do trust my mentors and log their guidance even when I might feel I disagreed at that particular time. Matti Makkonen’s fourth point, Community, turned out to be the biggest of them all - and almost totally powered by the mobile revolution. Even as Social Networking first emerged on the PC internet side, the money was soon made on mobile and today all major players in Social Media agree, their future is totally on the mobile side. And it helped that Ilkka Pukkila reinforced that one message frequently - don’t forget about Community. Without Matti or Ilkka, this blog would not exist because the book would not have been written. I would simply have not spotted the opportunity until it was too late to try to write a book about it haha...

MAKKONEN WAS BELOVED AND ADORED

Let me mention about my Department and its reaction to Matti Makkonen. Note, these were among the very brightest and best of Nokia’s talent. They were not trying to build the technology for 3G networks or the handsets but to understand the BUSINESS of the future, how in that 3G world, different players would survive and grow. Who could make money - and how - out of a world that literally did not exist yet. They had access to all of Nokia’s research and experts - at that time literally the largest collection of 3G related patents, engineers, research was at Nokia - plus we commissioned out of my budget the world’s largest consumer surveys covering over 50,000 people in several dozen countries globally, about various dimensions of mobile data services. Where I was the administrator who had to spend all my time in various endless meetings, mostly my consultants could do their research and analysis work and spend much of their time with Nokia’s clients - the operators/carriers. There was simply no more competent group of experts on what the future of mobile data could be, than my Department by that time. Let me show you our Consultants on a recreational day skiing.

Nokia 3G Consulting Department 2001

So It was not me who researched and analyzed and thought through and argued the visions of 3G mobile business. I had almost no time to do that kind of ‘work’ as a middle-manager most of my work was just administration with occasional PR jobs. I’d review their work, supervise some of it, and mostly just had to accept it all because I was no longer really competent to evaluate it. The various areas were moving so fast, it made my head spin. Now, my Consultants.. they were the best of the best (of the best). And they read every report by Gartner and Ovum and IDC and Informa and so forth. They KNEW. And THEY were impressed with what Matti Makkonen said. That four-part view to the future - Advertainment, Edutainment, Infotainment and Community - that was regularly referenced by my Consultants - and always attributed with considerable respect, to Matti Makkonen. In year 2000, nobody else had this kind of vision to the future of mobile. Nobody. But suddenly, all my Consultants were now allowed to quote Matti as this being part of the vision we - the Department - had of the future...

So again, to be clear, this was not the only thing Matti told us, he also covered the usual suspects from news alerts to videogames to mobile payments to telematics etc. That was ‘normal’ and not the part that sticks to your mind for 16 years. But those four.. Advertainment, Edutainment, Infotainment and Community - those did. I think of them yes, at least once every month.

So Matti Makkonen’s invention, SMS Text Messaging is worth 138 Billion dollars in annual revenues and used by 5.8 Billion people worldwide today. Its bigger than what the inventor of radio, Marconi’s original concept, wireless telegraph, and the evolution of his invention - consumer radio broadcasting - had grown to at their peaks, at well under 110 Billion dollars. Now what of these four. The first three ‘tainment’ parts are all slight or small sub-sectors of modest parts of the mobile data industry and probably nobody really measures them (yet) for their precise sizes, well under a Billion dollars each, probably.

But Mobile Social Networking (not all Social Networking just the part on mobile) is the fastest-growing sector in mobile data and already worth 39 Billion dollars (according to TomiAhonen Almanac 2015). Mobile Social Networking has 2.1 Billion active users already (TomiAhonen Almanac 2015). So Social Networking just on mobile is larger than the total PC based internet worldwide. Social Networking on mobile ignoring the PC side, is viewed on more pocket screens around the world - than the total number of TV SETS globally. How’s that for them apples, eh? Another radio revolution surpassing another radio revolution. And talking of that television then as an industry. TV grew to pass Marconi’s era two radio industries, telegraph and broadcast radio and is worth about 500 Billion dollars today. What about the mobile data revolution that Matti Makkonen spawned out of the humble SMS text message. As the various Spotifys and Ubers and Whatsapps and Admobs joined the mobile data revolution the total mobile data industry (excluding cellular voice but including Skype type VOIP services) - yes, mobile data today is worth 525 Billion dollars (TomiAhonen Almanac 2015). Mobile data as a total industry, is now larger than television by revenues worldwide. Yes. It just happened. This time next year, mobile data will be larger than the total broadcast industry of TV and radio, combined. This time next year. And obviously mobile data is not apps. Apps only succeed as a delivery channel for mobile gaming and are less than one tenth of mobile data overall. Don’t focus on apps (unless you’re a game developer). Marconi, your radio thing-a-ma-jig may have some life in it, haha.

WHAT NEXT

We stand on the shoulders of giants. Matti Makkonen, the father of the mobile data industry was a true giant and many of my books are direct descendants of his teachings and of course I thank him in my books. Matti was a rare visionary who not just saw the potential of his invention, but was able to see beyond it. If you work in Information, News, Education then do work to add ‘tainment’ to what you offer - make it Infotainment or Edutainment when you do deliver mobile services. The same with advertising. Make it so good your customers ask for more, like Amazon, like iadbox, like Coca Cola, like McDonalds.

And in mobile, currently, the fastest-growing part is.. Social Networking. How do we make money in Social Networking on mobile, that was the kind of stuff I was teaching the industry back when the iPhone was being launched and its why even giants like Facebook finally came to ‘the dark side’ of mobile. Its what the whole Pearls Vol 3: Mobile Social Networking book spends explaining and illustrating. But Matti is gone, its up to younger generations to carry on that mantle and help us see into the next areas. What comes next? I’ve always been intrigued by that question and my first answer is always ‘I wish I knew’ haha. But seriously, we know some parts. Augmented Reality will be the next mass media after mobile the 7th. We know this, I’ve been teaching this for years now. See my TEDx Talk about it if you didn’t know why AR will be quite much larger than say VR. Money will go mobile, we know that (my book Pearls Vol 3: Mobile Money). The big thing interesting me now, is Big Data. We have the world’s first case study on that, how Big Data compares to the old way of using demographics data driving old mass market advertising. Beyond that.. I wish I knew. I will keep on searching and sharing with you whatever I find.

But thank you Matti Makkonen for bring us this far. You foresaw most of what became of the mobile industry and you did it often a decade before the others. Up there in heaven, you’ll no doubt be wandering around with your heavenly mobile phone, sending texts to your new pal Marconi, sitting in his telegraph room, who in Heaven’s telecoms switchboard, of course receives your text messages sent in Finnish, arriving in Italian, on Morse Code. Beep-Beep-Beep.

PS - For those who want to see all the mobile industry stats, the latest TomiAhonen Almanac 2015 edition that came out a few months ago, has all the numbers you ever wanted.

For those who’d want to have a look into the future, along the theme of this blog article, for them I have the latest update of my TomiAhonen Mobile Forecast 2018 that came out last year. Yes.. if you wanted to see the future, why not see it via the most accurate forecaster of the mobile industry.

April 06, 2016

Found a really cool study by ZD Net that has occasionally no doubt made all of us ponder. I've had a thought that the total electricity consumed by a mobile phone from its recharging is worth less than one dollar (or one Euro actually) per year but that was an ancient number from very hazy sources. Now we have a fresh study by ZD Net who did it on a phablet-screen iPhone 6 Plus. They measured that it consumes 19.2 wh (watt hours) per night of recharging. In a year it amounted to 7 kwh (kilowatt hours). And by current US electricity costs that amounts to 84 US cents ie $0.84 to keep the iPhone on for a year in electrical costs.

Note - the industry has totally different (vastly higher) power requirements at the base stations at the cell towers, so its not a total cost. This is the electrical cost at our end. The other electrical costs are of course part of the costs of operating a mobile network and part of what you pay for in your phone bill. But yeah. Now we know. 84 cents per year, or every four days of recharging, you've spent another penny on your mobile addiction in terms of its electricity costs. Thanks ZD Net for doing the story.

So how is that then cumulatively for humankind. Again, its not much. The total bill to keep all our phones recharged in terms of electricity would be about 39,000 Gigawatt hours (gwh) per year (about five large electrical power plants running 24h per day - but this covers all 5.6 Billion handsets both smart and dumb). In dollar terms, roughly 3 Billion US dollars is our electrical bill to keep all phones recharged in a year.

April 02, 2016

The US Presidential election saga keeps getting more dramatic. Up to now I have not been expecting the Republican nomination fight to go to a contested or deadlocked (aka ‘brokered’) convention but the last week of Trump’s multiple stumbles are opening this to be now my most likely scenario. So quick explanation of the rules. The Republican nomination requires 1,237 delegates to clinch the nomination. Trump is leading with 752 delegates (49% of those awarded so far) and there are 923 left to be awarded (including unpledged delegates). If Trump can win 53% of the remaining delegates then he just clinches and there will be no contested convention. I originally projected in January before any states had voted, that Trump would clinch on the last day of voting, June 7. The last time I did this analysis, that was still my estimate. Now, I think Trump has just slipped below and its heading most likely to that contested convention. That then means far more uncertaintly and opens many scenarios not just where any of Trump or Cruz or Kasich could end up being the nominee for President by the Republican party, it could even be some ‘outsider’ who isn’t currently in the race. It could be someone who had dropped out (Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, Scott Walker, Jeb Bush etc) or could be someone who never ran in this year’s race (Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Paul Ryan etc). So as this now becomes a significantly possible outcome of the primary voting race and delegate hunt, lets map out the main scenarios and what kind of likely outcome it would mean for the party going forward into the main race against Hillary Clinton for the Autumn general election.

IF TRUMP WINS

Trump does have the most delegates and his lead is significant 289 delegates over second-place Cruz. Trump also leads by a clear margin in national polling at about 42% to Cruz around 30% and Kasich around 19%. Its most likely that Trump will get the most delegates in the remaining months and finishes with the most. That doesn’t mean he wins the nomination but that he’d be in the strongest position, initially. So lets first do the ideal scenario for Trump. If he does clinch on June 7, and finishes with 1,237 delegates or more, he is the nominee. No possible combination of Cruz and Kasich (and even Rubio and Jeb Bush) could get more delegates and Trump will be nominated. The reason this is the best for Trump is that for the six weeks between the last vote and the convention, Trump could patiently build his message, his team, select anyone he wanted as his VP and Trump would get to dictate just about everything about the convention. It would be totally his party. He would prepare the anti-Hillary part of the message and he’d decide pretty much what would be the overall messaging for the party going to the Autumn race. Trump would not need to ‘compromise’ and ‘sacrifice’ by selecting one of his rivals as VP and there ‘should’ be some magnificent Trumpian plan for who his awesome VP choice is. Its gotta be someone better than Chris Christie haha.

If Trump clearly ‘wins’ and clinches 1,237 delegates or more, then while Cruz (and Kasich) supporters will be very disappointed, they’d only be like any other runners-up in this race and they’ll get around to accepting Trump and join in supporting him (regardless of what they now are saying). Trump would have a good six weeks to heal most of the wounds. He’d give nice speaking slots to both Cruz and Kasich and make some promises if necessary about some cabinet positions and there would be a reasonable degree of party unity at the convention. While many in the party leadership are and would be freaking out about Trump as their standard-bearer for the November election, there would be no sneaky ploys to steal the nomination out of credentials challenges, rules changes etc. If Trump fairly wins 1,237 delegates, he’s in. And then he’ll lose by 20 points to Hillary and the Senate and House will both flip.

For Trump every other ‘Trump wins’ scenario gets worse. In fact, every other scenario in this blog gets worse for him. So the second scenario is that Trump finishes with some delegates short of 1,237 but more than 1,100. This is probably the most likely scenario currently. He gets the most delegates but not enough to win over half. Now Trump would have to hustle for some partner to be his VP. The one who would seem ‘easiest’ to win over is Marco Rubio. He will have spent the most time out of the limelight and the hunger has been growing of what he walked away from. He’s not close enough to the last races and the bitterness of not winning. His career in the Senate will end. If Rubio became Trump’s VP (and Trump will obviously lose) then Rubio is reincarnated suddenly as the front-runner to run again in 2020. Rubio holds theoretically 173 delegates, some who may or may not be allowed to vote for a combined Trump-Rubio ticket but if they agree to this partnership and obviously then the Cruz-Kasich camp cannot match the delegates, the party will let this ticket be nominated. However, that does require that Trump convinces Rubio to join his ticket and Trump has been behaving remarkably stupidly since Rubio dropped out, often returning to be critical of the opponent who had already quit the race. Rubio may not be an easy deal to make but Trump is a master deal-maker, he could and indeed he should be able to close that deal.

But Rubio is damaged goods and a bad choice for VP as he probably can’t even win his home state of Florida. If Trump were allowed top pick from Cruz, Kasich and Rubio, he would pick Kasich. Because Kasich as VP would almost guarantee the ticket to win Ohio, a vital battleground state that would be very valuable in trying to win against Hillary. So if Trump finishes in June with less than 1,237 delegates but above 1,100, then he’d definitely try to do the deal for VP with Kasich. And Kasich in most cases will finish behind Cruz, so Kasich knows, he can’t get a better deal out of Cruz either. Now, if Trump just approaches Kasich - and Kasich knows without his acceptance Trump will have to go to the Convention and take the votes, where Kasich can start to gain delegates after the first vote - he’d say no. BUT if Trump plays it smart - and this is basics of negotiation - Trump would FIRST get a preliminary deal with Rubio. And only after Marco says yes, would Trump go to Kasich and say - the deal is done, I will be the nominee for President, Rubio has said yes to VP, so you, Kasich are out, or else, you are my VP. Do you prefer to be my VP or be out of the race. And let Kasich mull it over for a few days (not telling Rubio about this double-cross). Kasich is an old guy, he came in third in the race for delegates. For him to get VP is actually the best he could do anyway. And considering how divisive Trump is as a person, he might be impeached while in office (or assassinated) and that could gift the Presidency to Kasich.. Why not take the deal. So I think if Trump finishes with 1,100 delegates or more but under 1,237, then he’ll probably be able to do a deal and his choice of these three rivals is Kasich, not Rubio (and definitely not Cruz).

It would be in Trump’s best interest to land this deal as soon as possible but it could well take weeks and the deal might not even come until the eve of the Convention. The sooner it comes, the more the rivals can become accustomed to the race being over. If the combined delegate count of Trump and his VP is significantly over 1,237 so well more than 1,250 and ideally over 1,300 then the losing parties would mostly accept it but there would be plenty of hurt feelings. Still the outcome would be relatively similar to the above, but only less time for Trump to set his convention to his liking. Yet it is about the delegates, everybody knows that, and they’d accept it. But if this gets Trump to just barely over the limit, say at around 1,240 delegates, in that case the injured parties (Cruz and whoever is left) could try to block Trump and force a proper vote on the convention floor - where they’d then try to deny enough of the votes on the first ballot to prevent Trump + VP from getting the nomination. Whichever way that went, it would then be ugly and leave a ton of bitter angry Republicans on the losing side.

If the convention is contested and Trump can’t win it on the first ballot, then I think Trump won’t become the nominee. The reason for this is, that most of the delegates that the various states send to Cleveland will not be picked by the CANDIDATES they are picked by the state party organization. And those are usually longer-term loyal Republican activists and supporters and fund-raisers and so forth. They are ‘the establishment’ rather than the rebellion that comes to Trump’s rallies. They are exactly the kind of people who would fear Trump on top of the ticket, causing their home party to lose in November to the Democrats. There definitely will also be Trump supporters but if Trump’s national support is about 40% then of those delegates sent to Cleveland, he would be lucky to have half ie something like 20%. And then, from the second vote and into the fourth vote, an increasing proportion of those delegates becomes unbound and they can vote - personally, not by how their state voted or how their party bosses want - those delegates can vote INDIVIDUALLY to anyone they want. And then Trump’s support will decline from what his first-vote delegate count was. That is why I think, if Trump cannot win on the first ballot, he won’t be the nominee.

This is not absolute objection. Trump might have held out on some negotiations - being the hard-ass negotiator and if one of his rivals was close to a deal but asked for something Trump wasn’t willing to give. If in the second ballot Trump sees he is suddely bleeding delegates, he could rush to that partner and ‘cave’ and make the deal and then win on the third ballot through a partnership deal. But this is unlikely because his rivals would be gaining delegates at each vote as Trump was then bleeding, so they would no longer be interested in dealing. But again, Trump is a master deal-maker, he could maybe salvage a compromise partnership deal with one of his rivals for VP, and still escape as the nominee on the third (or theoretically even fourth) ballot. At this point, however, the rival camp especially Cruz’s supporters will have seen a rising tide and the game shifting into their favor - then suddenly be stolen from them. They’d be angry (and obviously in this case its Kasich not Rubio, if Kasich were to consider a deal with Trump, he’d also go negotiate with Cruz to see if he’d get a better deal there). Because the race was decided on the first day of the Convention, after more than one vote, it would leave the losers (Cruz supporters) with a very bitter taste and a lot of resentment and plenty of feeling of betrayal. But Cruz would not be in any position to run a third-party candidacy and the establishment wing would get ‘their guy’ onto the Trump ticket (Kasich or Rubio) and this probably would keep them satisfied enough, not to try to run some sacrificial third party candidate against Trump. Meanwhile the event itself would be a chaotic circus and a ton of angry familiar names in Republican politics who would be eager to talk to any media about how this was a rotten convention. There would be less unity meaning Trump would fare even worse in the general election against Hillary.

IF CRUZ WINS

Cruz cannot win the nomination though clinching the nomination with 1,237 delegates. Yes mathematically there is that chance but Cruz would have to win 84% of outstanding delegates and considering how rock-solid is Trump’s base of supporters, there is simply no way that Trump wins less than 25%. And there is Kasich also who will win something. So Cruz cannot clinch. But he could finish with more delegates than Trump. That is still a tall order, Cruz would have to win twice as many delegates from here until the end than Trump. Even if Trump is stumbling badly now, its hard to imagine that Trump would average 30% or less of the remaining delegates (not votes, delegates, remembering there are minimum thresholds etc and many winner-take-all states, so the leading candidates will end up with more than their share of votes). For Cruz this would be his ideal scenario, while its a very tall order, it could happen. Especially if now Trump truly stumbles. So if Cruz finishes say with 1,030 delegates and Trump with 1,010 - where Cruz just technically finishes slightly ahead of Trump, that would give him a level of legitimacy going into the Convention that Cruz did finish first. Then he’d still have to do the deal with either Kasich or Rubio for VP to have the delegates to win the nomination as a pair on the first ballot. The party would prefer Cruz over Trump for the general election so if this partnership is achieved, then the party would make the necessary changes to voting rules so that the pairing can be blessed and the nomination convention would be Cruz’s to plan and choreograph.

Now, Trump and his supporters would be mad and yell and scream that they were robbed and Trump would of course threaten to sue. But for Cruz, this is the least angry Trump version. At least Trump would have several weeks of time to calm down. They’d try to get Trump to join the convention, offer him a big speaking slot etc. Its possible that Trump would make some stunt and resign from the party and declare an independent run (in many states the filing deadlines would have passed) and ask his supporters to vote for him as a write-in candidate etc, but if the Cruz+partner ticket was clearly over 1,237 delegates and its weeks before the convention, then it probably would be mostly just noise and no real action by Trump. Trump would know he could not possibly win the election as a third party candidate. But Trump supporters would be angry and many would stay home and some would vote for Hillary. But Cruz’s negatives - while they are bad - are not as bad as Trump’s. So if Trump did not actually run against as an independent, then Cruz might lose by less than Trump. If, however, Trump simply out of spite ran a pure spoiler campaign of a bare-minimum budget run, mostly relying on free media and of course participating in the debates - then he’d steal so many votes from Cruz that Trump might finish second and Cruz third against Hillary. Oh, and of course Trump could decide not to run and just endorse Hillary...

Thats Cruz’s best case scenario. Then its possible Cruz can’t get to a deal for the first vote, but that he wins the nomination on the second, third or fourth vote. As I said, delegates become unbound based on their own state-party rules, either on the second, third or fourth vote. And Cruz’s campaign is by all counts the strongest in working those delegates so after the first vote, while Trump will lose delegates, Cruz will gain. So if Cruz for example finishes the race with 800 delegates to Trump’s 1,100, and the vote goes four votes, it could be that Cruz gets to 1,300 by the fourth vote and Trump to be down to 600 (while Kasich would do better than Trump but worse than Cruz in picking up those unbound delegates).

So in this case, the subsequent votes would see an erosion of delegates with Trump, and going disproportionately to Cruz. And then on one of the early votes, Cruz gets to enough delegates that he becomes the nominee (this could also be at some stage via a partnership with Kasich as VP). Now Trump and his supporters had seen that they went into the convention with the most delegates but then that ‘their’ delegates had suddenly ‘betrayed’ Trump. It would be nasty and could very well be physically violent on the floor. This is where Trump likely would be livid and his supporters be enraged. Note this is on live TV and on day 1 of the convention. Now with his nomination ‘stolen’ the Trump supporters could easily play any kind of total belligerent stunts on the floor and there could be riots. From this there will be no reconciliation with Trump or his supporters. Then Trump would certainly do whatever he felt was the appropriate revenge from running as a third party to endorsing Hillary to becoming a full-time TV critic nightly of Cruz.

IF KASICH WINS

Kasich cannot get to most delegates by June 7. He will be in third place or if he is incredibly lucky (if Cruz collapses) then Kasich could finish second. Note its even possible Kasich finishes fourth (Rubio currently has more delegates than Kasich). Because Kasich can’t finish first or second in delegates under any reasonable outcome, he is either going to be VP at best, or else, he needs a truly deadlocked convention. What Kasich is hoping for, is that Trump can’t clinch and neither Trump nor Cruz can get to 1,237 in the early votes, and then that as the three keep trying to convert delegates, Kasich could persuade enough delegates that actually Kasich is the most ELECTABLE candidate even as he finished third in the primary race. Up to now (April 2) there has been very little consideration of the general election. But the first Trump vs Hillary final election projection has been made by a major forecaster (Sabato, who has a very good record of projecting past elections) who said Trump would lose all states Romney did, plus he’d lose one more (North Carolina). There will be plenty more trusted forecasters who will be doing their election projections and they will all be something in that level of truly catastrophic for Trump. And as those prospects loom, the Republican delegates to the convention will start to worry about the November election. Electability will be a significant theme if the convention is contested. That is where Kasich’s argument starts to bear fruit.

But Cruz will have a huge lead first off, with more delegates, and then out of the stacking of the various state delegations to support Cruz in later votes. Meanwhile out of those delegates who will be with Trump from the second ballot - those will mostly be then true Trumpians, who would vote for Trump even if he did shoot somebody. It is a VERY tall order for Kasich to surge from third place at a long distance to take a majority of all delegates ie its not enough for him to surge to a plurality, he does need to get to that 1,237. If Kasich gets to it, its either very late on Day 1 of voting - or worse, they suspend the voting for the night, and return to vote on Day 2. Note, Kasich in some ways controls his destiny because Trump will never be Cruz’s VP and Cruz won’t accept Trump’s VP slot especially as Cruz will be able to climb to more delegates in the later votes than Trump (at least for a while). So as both Trump and Cruz come to Kasich after every vote to offer him the VP slot, if Kasich keeps saying no, he could keep the voting going forever and just try to convert every interval a couple more delegates until he eventually becomes the winner. Its an unlikely but still plausible scenario.

Note, that the party would far prefer Kasich to Cruz (and obviously to Trump) on the top of the ticket. So as long as they make progress towards this unlikely but possible outcome, the party people at the conventions will give Kasich whatever support they can muster. So its possible. But then.. if Kasich is the nominee and he cannot become this until after many votes and possibly not until Day 2 - that means both an incredibly angry Trump AND an angry Cruz and essentially half of the party in total revolt against ‘sneaky’ Kasich who finished a distant third and now stole their nomination(s). This could actually result in a genuine literal split in the party where the Tea Party walks out of the convention and runs Cruz (and Trump might run as a fourth-party candidate). If either were to run against Kasich, Kasich would lose massively to Hillary. But its also possible that the repeated votes are a slow draining process that wears each side down and Kasich just emerges as the kind of last-man-standing and both rival sides reluctantly agree that he won in the end of this marathon. I can’t see it in the nature of Trump or Cruz to just agree, yeah, Kasich won - but they might. I could even see, that perhaps Cruz, if he saw his lead gradually be eroded to Kasich, that Cruz then surrenders and accepts Kasich’s offer of VP. That would have to be a kind of slow and clearly inevitable trend, each vote Kasich picks up about 50 more delegates and then passes Cruz and slowly marches towards the 1,337 and Cruz is unable to stop the bleeding.. then he might agree to a VP position although I think not.

IF SOMEONE ELSE WINS

So if nobody gets 1,237 delegates there is only one remedy: another vote. It could go on for dozens and dozens of votes, over literally more than a day. One Democratic convention had over 100 votes until they decided on their nominee. There is no other way to pick the nominee, except - yet another vote. Now, consider the three. Each has a VERY distinct constituency that could foreseeably be stubborn till hell freezes over. Trump has the nutters, the racists and much of the Tea Party. Plus he has the blue-collar white Republicans in low-paying jobs. His base of supporters are the most decided and loyal of any voter group on either side of the aisle. While at the convention of the delegates, he won’t have 40% he might have 30% and he’ll definitely have over 20%. Then there is Cruz. He has the religious wing and the rest of the Tea Party. While his national support has only reached about 30% at the convention he will have at least that and probably closer to 40% of the delegates but very unlikely to get to 50% because he is such a disliked and extreme politician, and because Trump has part of the Tea Party. Lets say its about 40%.

So then we have the ‘establishment’ and ‘moderate’ and sensible foreign policy Republicans who all are horrified by either Trump or Cruz. As Lindsay Graham said, to pick between the two is to pick whether to be shot or poisoned, both will kill you (yet Graham now has endorsed Cruz). The moderate wing would be with Kasich. But because the disgruntled blue-collar low-income voters are with Trump, Kasich can’t really get to over 50% either. If it was any two, then a majority is easy. But these three could be close to 1/3 vs 1/3 vs 1/3. Or in reality more like 25% for Trump, 35% for Cruz and 40% for Kasich and that could remain deadlocked forever. And because Trump will never be anybody’s VP and Cruz initially finished ahead of Kasich, neither Trump nor Cruz could then accept to be the VP to Kasich. It could produce a genuinely deadlocked convention that could go 20 or 30 votes on Day 1 and by Day 2, after another dozen votes, the party could open the convention for new candidates to be nominated in some way, as compromise candidates. Someone that at least two of those three factions could agree to support. Thats where Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin (gasp) and any of the earlier rivals like Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, Mike Huckabee, Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, Carly Fiorina etc could be put forth and suggested to the groups. Here if one had already endorsed one candidate, it could be a deal-breaker but not necessarily if that candidate had managed to remain very fair to the other(s). Its also possible that one of the three, Trump, Cruz & Kasich - might agree to someone they perceive as weak into the general election - just so that the compromise candidate is NOT then going to win and become the President (and embarrass thus the candidate who had actually won hundreds of delegates).

Here BY FAR the most likely candidate is Paul Ryan. He was the VP before. He is establishment and moderate but conservative enough that many Tea Partiers also respect him. He is also going to be chairing the convention. He likes to play that reluctant warrior, who says no no no no until he says yes. That was how he played VP to Romney in 2012 and how he played the House Speaker position after John Boehner quit. I think if such a compromise is found, that would be less divisive than most of the above options, as it won’t be seen as one of the finalist ‘stealing’ the race but it going to a genuine ‘compromise’ where nobody gets to win. Note, this means the voting lasted more than one day. This means the whole convention is a mess and the new nominee for President would not even have a VP yet (and that could not be any of the three finalists). That candidate would not have any field operations done to prepare for the general election and no real positions on anything nor any team or organization. The rest of the convention would be run by the seat-of-the-pants with no real major themes other than being against Hillary obviously. This choice has the best chance of no real rift in the party - under the best scenario - and of course still a valid possibility of one severely angry player who might still throw a big fit. Note that the race is for the delegates and this kind of compromise candidate could result suddenly in some delegates ‘deserting’ their candidate - where then the candidate would feel betrayed - and become bitter.

The best part of this scenario is that theoretically the nominee (and eventual VP choice too) could be moderates with better chances in the general election. But now, the big fund-raising organizations that Trump, Cruz and Kasich had built, and the data-mining operations and the field operations - those would all need to be built from scratch or somehow acquired from the three runners-up. And then a rush-job to set up a campaign would need to be done, to go against the most prepared and best-funded non-inclumbent ever to run, in Hillary. That candidate would most definitely lose but might not lose that badly to give the House to the Democrats. The Senate would still be lost. This, of course assuming that none of the three, Trump, Cruz or Kasich decide to play sore loser and mess up the Republican team.

BEST INTEREST

So we have mapped out the rough scenarios. Now lets summarize the best interests. For Trump he HAS to get to 1,237 or at least 1,100 delegates. Then no matter what is the demand by Rubio or Kasich, Trump has to get a clear agreement with one of his last 3 rivals to agree to be VP, so he can bring to the Republican party a done deal, where the ticket can then clinch the nomination even if Trump alone might not. With this, the last week has been a total catastrophy for Trump. He is horribly undisciplined and prone to repeated self-induced wounds. Like Morning Joe Scarborough just said, Trump has to change his style and now become disciplined and stick to a clear script and stop the constant telephoned-in media exposure and nightly Twittering. He has to be the tiger that changed its stripes if he intends to win the nomination. This is a tall ask. But Trump has been incredibly lucky and his rivals are not exactly the Einsteins of politics, so Trump could well do it (oh, and see DC Madam Sex Scandal below). But Trump cannot let the race go past the first vote at the Convention.

For Cruz, he needs to maximize his delegate haul (such as winning now in Wisconsin) and then stack the deck in the delegates past the first vote. He has to have spies near each of the Kasich, Rubio and Trump camps, to make sure he is not outmaneouvered by a surprise Trump deal. It doesn’t help that Cruz has been eagerly burning every bridge he ever walked over. He is very smart in some ways but he seems to be genuinely tone-deaf when it comes to the word ‘collaborate’ with his own party. It would be the smartest thing he could do, if he now worked feverishly to try to fix some of the damaged relations with the party establishment but that does not seem to be in the nature of Ted Cruz. Still, he cannot win it outright, his best bet is to win on the second, third, fourth votes if he can get enough of his people embedded in the various state delegate groupings. And Cruz will need to try to land deals with either Rubio or Kasich when any such numbers might work for his nomination (obviously Rubio soon becoming irrelevant after the second vote).

For Kasich, he probably gets to be the king-maker and gets to pick with which he’ll be the VP but Kasich should delay that choice and try to first see if he might wear out the rivals with votes into ten or more, hopefully gradually picking up enough random delegates on the electability argument to actually take the nomination. A long-shot but possible. If it gets to those votes, its in Kasich’s interest NOT to take any deals offered until its 100% certain after several vote, that no more delegates can be pried from Trump or Cruz. So Kasich’s best interest, if the first vote does not decide it for Trump and the next five votes do not decide it for Cruz, is to just let the day end with votes and go into day 2. But if before the Convention Trump comes in and says Rubio has agreed, will Kasich instead become Trump’s VP - that deal Kasich has to take or he ends up with nothing.

For Rubio, he may hope he gets to be king-maker but that is not in the cards. The only chance for Rubio is a slim one - Trump has to get more than 1,100 delegates but under 1,237. In that case - and only that case - can Rubio become Trump’s (and only Trump’s) VP. But that then requires that Kasich turns down Trump’s alternate offer. Its a slim chance for Rubio but his only way to get anything is VP with Trump in this particular way. On Cruz’s side there is nothing on offer. Cruz won’t get to 1,100 delegates, so Rubio alone cannot bring Cruz over the top, and that means Cruz will always need Kasich who will have more delegates and thus would become the VP. And Rubio will see clearly that Cruz will lose (badly) and thus no promises of Secretary of State etc could be of any value to Rubio because Cruz can’t beat Hillary anyway so that promise is worthless. The only real chance for Rubio is to be Trump’s VP, at best.

Now for the OTHERS... there will be MANY who are hoping against hope to steal the nomination out of a deadlocked convention, starting with Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. They will have plenty of incentive to try to wreck any deals and thus expose any schemes and alliances and gossip with the press etc. But because they would need to get also the support of the delegates, they’d be leaking off the record, or via conduits and conspirators.

DC MADAM SEX SCANDAL

Then there is one total handgrenade that can blow up the whole calculation. Last week the former attorney for the notorious DC Madam who was convicted in 2007 for running an escort service of high-priced hookers for DC clients (who then committed suicide in 2008) has declared that he wants to reveal the 815 names that are currently under court-ordered gag-order. So 815 people, likely many famous politicians and other prominent people in DC including maybe military, media, police, judges etc - are among those 815. But that sleazy ex-lawyer has said that at least one of the 5 remaining candidates in this year’s race is among the 815 names. Could even be 2 of the 5.

So the DC Madam had run her operation from 1998 to 2007. During that total time Bernie Sanders was in DC as first a Congressman then Senator. Hillary Clinton was also in DC first as the First Lady then as the Senator from New York. Ted Cruz was in DC from 2001 to 2003 on the legal team of W Bush’s administration (then went back home to Texas but frequently visited DC to argue several cases in front of the Supreme Court). John Kasich was in DC only the first years and went to Ohio to work for Lehman Brother as an investment banker. And Trump was not living in DC but did visit it some times. From their physical presence its not very likely Trump or Kasich are on that list but Bernie, Hillary and/or Cruz could be. Now... the DC Madam did reveal a bunch of names back in 2007 that resulted in several careers ruined. If Hillary had been on that list (whether gay - female escort - or male escort - or even, could be that Hillary was booking girls for Bill haha if we get very lurid) you’d think the DC Madam would have included her name then, back in 2007. Its more likely that whoever is on that list, was more of a low-tier politician at the time. Bernie maybe, but Senator is still a big catch even if first-term Senator. The least visible very low-level official at that time was Ted Cruz.

Then looking at gossip about sex scandals, as far as I can see, Kasich, Bernie and Hillary have had no gossip about personal sex scandals (but obviously Bill Clinton had several). Trump had his infidelities yes but seems like he’d probably not come to DC to get a hooker, he’d probably use a New York escort service, closer to home, if he wanted to use one. But .. Ted Cruz has plenty of gossip that he has had sex scandals in his past. There is also now a warning by Anonymous that they supposedly have hacked into the list and have some phone records relating to Texas. So if one of the 5 finalists DID use a hooker by the DC Madam, I’d guess that was Ted Cruz. Note, I have ZERO knowledge of this, and its pure speculation based on what the attorney now says and which is the ‘best fit’ pattern out of their other press coverage and the timing when they were in DC.

But whoever it is, if there is really one of these five (its possible the attorney is hyping this story and in reality its a low-tier campaign staffer, not the actual candidate, in which case that staffer would resign and the candidate could easily move on past the modest scandal) who has used a call girl (or boy) then I think that political career ends almost instantly and obviously the race for President for that candidate goes the way of Gary Hart and John Edwards and Herman Cain. Now, on Trump, he is so much made of teflon if it was Trump, he actually might survive a sex scandal. I don’t think he would, but he is so durable in the face of outrageous career-ending gaffes that he might. But the other four, they would definitely be toast if their name(s) can be found on the 815 names of the DC Madam.

The attorney who has this list has just written to the Supreme Court this past week saying it is urgent to release him from the gag order, because a name (or names) among the 5 remaining Presidential candidates is on that list. He said he gives the Supreme Court 2 weeks to release him. He said even if the Supreme Court doesn’t say, he will release the names in two weeks. And the names are already on four servers internationally and hidden, on a rolling 72 hour timer, so if something happens to the guy, then the names get released automatically. This is similar to how Wikileaks has been operating and there is some speculation that the names are actually held with Wikileaks. But it seems very likely that this is genuine and it will be revealed within about 10 days and could literally happen within the next hour even. Then one of the five is instantly eliminated and the total race is drastically altered. So lets go over the five by what I think is the likelihood.

Ted Cruz. He is the most likely candidate to be on that DC Madam list. He’s also the most religious and ‘pure’ candidate who has preached his family values agenda repeatedly. If Cruz is the one, he is instantly toast. Yes, we’d probably see the spectacle of Cruz standing with his stoic wife just behind him begging forgiveness. And to no avail, his career would be kaput. But how would that impact the race? Kasich would suddenly become the only non-Trump. How many of Cruz’s voters would go to Trump instead of Kasich? I can’t see many doing that, so most of them would go to Kasich. We’d get something like 55-45 voter support in the remaining races - except that some states have already had early voting and thus Kasich would not get to that 55% level, maybe only 50%. But because of winner-take-all states and so many of the remaining states being kinder to moderate candidates and as Trump has been faltering, Kasich could win as many as 70% of the remaining delegates. Then Trump would be denied the 1,237 level and Kasich could finish ahead of Cruz and have as much as 800 delegates. From that, after the first vote, Kasich should be able to convert most of the Cruz and Rubio delegates and snatch the nomination from Trump.

But Trump would not be out. If Trump played it very carefully, hit Kasich repeatedly and hard everywhere, Trump could get to 1,100 delegates or even to 1,237 as Cruz was out of it. If Trump got 40% of the remaining delegates he’s past 1,100 and if Trump got to 53% he’d clinch. This would genuinely become a two-man race where if Trump had the discipline of a strong and focused campaign with not many gaffes, he could take it. And equally, Kasich would have to hit Trump very hard at every level and stop with the nice guy routine if Kasich intended to win.

Oh, and a wrinkle here. If Cruz dropped out leaving only Kasich as the non-Trump, I think Rubio could jump back into the race and resume his candidacy, arguing he has more delegates than Kasich and had won more states or regions. That in turn would just about guarantee that Trump still won the contest because now Rubio would only be a spoiler to Kasich probably winning more delegates but never enough to really matter.

Bernie Sanders. I think Bernie is the second most likely client of the DC Madam and this is FAR below where I think Cruz is. But yes, its possible. If it is Bernie, then his run is instantly over. The party would totally desert him and demand he ends his run instantly because of all the bad press he’d be now bringing to the ticket. As Bernie is not a member of the Democratic party and they’ve kind of tolerated his run, now he’d be instantly cut off at the knees. Some younger voters would try to understand him and forgive but it would be over. Hillary would benefit as she’d get a far earlier chance to pivot to the general election and not worry about giving Bernie a major role speaking at the Convention.

Hillary Clinton. So yeah, it could be that Hillary is gay (wouldn’t that be something) or that the DC Madam also provided male escorts. And its even possible if we really think like a soap opera, that Hillary and Bill have a totally wrecked marriage in a sexual sense but that Hillary would occasionally buy hookers for Bill instead of sleeping with her husband.. who knows. But its yes plausible that she is the name and yes, it would end her career. I could see some of her supporters stand with her briefly, especially women, if this was timed with Bill’s behavior but I can’t see her able to remain the candidate. That would suddenly make Bernie the candidate and then - all those great polls he gets now, beating the Republican rivals, would soon been demolished. The Republicans would sense their gift and attack Bernie the marxist leninist communist red socialist for everything he ever said. Then the race for 2016, essentially whoever it is from the Republican side, would suddenly be a race of unknown outcome. Looking at how incredibly kindly Bernie has fought, imagine him going against Trump? I think Trump would destroy Bernie in the way Jeb Bush was destroyed. But Trump is so toxic, it would still be a race but gosh, I could not handicap that race at this point. Could go either way.

Bill Clinton. Note, it could be that the attorney thinks because its the spouce of a candidate, that would still be relevant to the candiate (and it would). So it could be Bill Clinton. Obviously a man of many sex scandals. While it would be embarrassing and damaging too, to Hillary, I don't think it would end HER career but it would essentially knock Bill out of the race as a surrogate. Hillary would take damage but also probably get some sympathy. She'd maybe file for divorce or something like that, and yeah, it would be damaging but I don't think she'd be forced to quit because her husband is already known to be a sleazebag. But it would damage her while not cause her campaign to be derailed. Very inconvenient yes.

John Kasich. Kasich was only in DC for the very brief early years of the DC Madam but he could still have been a client at that time. If he was now exposed, his career would instantly end and that would be the best outcome for Cruz. If Kasich was out, almost all of the Kasich voters would come to Cruz rather than Trump. Then Cruz could finish ahead of Trump.

Donald Trump. Trump could use call girls why not. He’s sleazy enough to talk about banging his own daughter and he did buy the Miss Universe pageant so he could oogle pretty girls in bikinis at will. He might not be a regular client of the DC Madam but it could be for example that Trump used regularly some New York Madam and then that company would refer Trump to the DC Madam on some of his trips or whatever. Or that Trump might have experienced the DC Madam services as part of some perk related to some campaign contributions and shenanigans with whoever in DC. The reason I have Trump last is the geography, he would be expected to have another escort service nearer to home ie New York but it could be. If Trump was caught using a hooker in DC, then I think he would be the only candidate who MIGHT survive the scandal but see a big drop in his support. I don’t think he’d ever get the nomination but he might not have to quit the race. He’d just stop winning and he might finish with the most delegates but nowhere near 1,100 and he’d be out of it immediately in the second vote when Cruz would be nominated.

But this REALLY is like reality TV. An unscheduled extra elimination round has just been announced. Within the next ten days, one of the five (perhaps even two) will be eliminated, assuming that attorney really was telling the truth that one of the 5 finalists is on the DC Madam’s list. And that would dramatically alter the race that I speculated about in the above.

So get a refill to your popcorn. This is the once-in-a-lifetime election and your grandkids will be asking you what you thought of this weird election with Trump in America early in the century... Pay attention, this kind of entertainment doesn’t come around every ten years haha. And a deadlocked convention? That is a VERY rare treat, it hasn’t happened in the modern TV era.

Available for Consulting and Speakerships

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Tomi Ahonen is a bestselling author whose twelve books on mobile have already been referenced in over 100 books by his peers. Rated the most influential expert in mobile by Forbes in December 2011, Tomi speaks regularly at conferences doing about 20 public speakerships annually. With over 250 public speaking engagements, Tomi been seen by a cumulative audience of over 100,000 people on all six inhabited continents. The former Nokia executive has run a consulting practise on digital convergence, interactive media, engagement marketing, high tech and next generation mobile. Tomi is currently based out of Helsinki but supports Fortune 500 sized companies across the globe. His reference client list includes Axiata, Bank of America, BBC, BNP Paribas, China Mobile, Emap, Ericsson, Google, Hewlett-Packard, HSBC, IBM, Intel, LG, MTS, Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, Ogilvy, Orange, RIM, Sanomamedia, Telenor, TeliaSonera, Three, Tigo, Vodafone, etc. To see his full bio and his books, visit www.tomiahonen.com Tomi Ahonen lectures at Oxford University's short courses on next generation mobile and digital convergence. Follow him on Twitter as @tomiahonen. Tomi also has a Facebook and Linked In page under his own name. He is available for consulting, speaking engagements and as expert witness, please write to tomi (at) tomiahonen (dot) com

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